The Office of Copyright Society of Zanzibar provides the following services
An author or other owner of copyright may apply for membership of Copyright Society of Zanzibar. The registration of members and their works are done according to the Copyright and Related Rights (Registration of Members and their works) Regulation.
Members of the Society shall declare their works to the Society for collective copyright protection and registration. Such declaration of works shall be free of charge subject of payment of annual subscription fees in future.
The task of the unit is to determine the minimum tariffs to be levied in respect of uses to be made of works registered by it. To permit legal copyright uses for issuing license to commercial right users and to collect royalties. The Licensing of Public Performances and Broadcasting is guided by the Copyright (Licensing of Public Performances and Broadcasting) Regulations, 2009, Government Notice No 6326, published on 6th July, 2009 and its amendment of November, 2010.
It is provided that, no person shall hold a public performance or broadcasting of a work in which copyright subsists, except under a license issued by the Office of the Copyright Society of Zanzibar (COSOZA) under Regulation 3.
The Distribution of Royalties are guided by the Distribution rules as provided by the Third Schedule to the Licensing Regulation. All royalties due to the National and Foreign authors as well as to performing artists of musical works shall be deemed to come from one of the following three distribution classes.
The duty of this unit is to make inspections on the extent of the uses of copyrighted works in premises whereby copyright take place. Anti piracy operations take place across the country and managed to seize various equipments which were used in production of pirated works such as Computers, Duplicating machines, VHS player, DVD players DVD ROMs, compact disk, and different pirated CD/DVDS and VHS. Those operations have been conducted mostly in Mjini Magharib region where this business is taking place. During these operations a total number of 10,572 of pirated works (DVD, VHS, VCD, and CD) were seized.
The task of this unit is to collect royalties from different users and to distribute to copyright owners.
Events & News updates conserning COSOZA
The Office of Copyright Society of Zanzibar is a governmental parastatal established in 2005 following the enactment of the Copyright Act (Act No. 14) of 2003 with the jurisdiction to collectively manage copyright and related matters. The Act repealed English Copyright Act of 1956 and Order in Council of 1962.
This means that the law of Copyright in Zanzibar theoretical was there for about a century, however practical new one is. Ineffectiveness of the aforesaid repealed English Law, among other reason was that by that time aimed at protecting the work created by British which was used within the country, so for that no office established for the purpose of protecting the work of endogenous author (creator), every authors was required to protect his/ her work by himself/herself.
The repealment of the English Copyright of 1956 caused by several reasons including:- The foremost reason is due to complaint of the artist of Zanzibar being neglected by their government for their copyright as it is like other human right, since it is provided under the Article 10 of the constitution of Zanzibar of 1984, but the artistic work has been neglected like bush fruit.
Secondly, it is the notion of Good governance that, everyone must attain properly his/her right. Also to see that Zanzibar adopt the Berne Convention - 1886 which was adopted by Tanzania Mainland ,that require all state members to emplacement the copyright law international.
It is clearly that there is no limit in the use of literary and artistic works in this era of high science and technology; so it is very difficult for individual artist to administrator and protect his/her artistic work, not only outside Zanzibar but also within Zanzibar. The concept of Collective Management has brings together all artist through their Society known as the Copyright Society of Zanzibar 9COSOZA) where as it also connect them with their government. Also the establishment of Board of copyright and the enactment of the copyright law has show the huge important of administration of Copyright issue in Zanzibar.
The Office of the Copyright of Zanzibar hierarchically falls under the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs of Zanzibar. The Copyright Administrator is the Chief Executive Officer and is responsible to both the Principal Secretary and the Board whose Chairperson is appointed by the President and the members are appointed by the Minister responsible of Copyright matters. The Office is also consists of three Units which are: Documentation and Registration Unit, Licensing and Anti –Piracy Unit and Finance and Administration Unit.
The Board is the supreme organ of the Copyright Society of Zanzibar established under schedule of the Copyright Act (No.14) of 2003. Members of the board are appointed by virtue of their posts except Executive Secretary of the Zanzibar Arts Council and a member dealing with Industrial Property matters. The tenure of the service of the board is two year and one third of ex officio members, except those two mention above , shall be removed from their position after every two years and the private stakeholders shall replace them.
The Copyright Administrator of the Office is the Chief Executive Officer to the Society and the secretary to the board. She/ he is responsible to the board for the administration and management of its affairs, including the supervision of other staff of the office.
To promote the growth of creative industries though effective administration and enforcement of copyright for socio economic development of Zanzibar.
To be the best agency for the administration and enforcement of Copyright in the developing countries.
The Office has been established for the purpose of promoting the intellect of the artist and to promote the interest and the standard of their life with the aim of promoting the culture. Either the office aimed at protecting and advocate the rights and interest of the artist by making the copyright user to figure out the contribution of the artistic work and its important in business context.
The Copyright Law does not necessitate the copyright work to be registered for its protection as it provides an automatic protection once the creator (artist) expresses his / her ideas through tangible form. It should be born in mind that the copyright law does not protect the ideas but it protect the expression of ideas, can be through books, picture etc. It does not protect the title either.
The office provides evidence once there is an infringement of copyright for the work that has been registered.
The office aware people and provides information relating to copyright law in different ways including brochure. Not only that but also it educate the owner of copyright about their economic and moral right which is provided in the copyright law in order to make them to enter into legal contract for the use of their work with reasonable consideration ( price).
Since the wishes of the government are to see her artist (authors) are beneficiary of their work. General the use of copyrighted work insisted to be used legally. Every user must get consent from the legal owner of the copyright work. However for any artist who has already registered his/her work to the Office of Copyright Society of Zanzibar that means automatically has given the office the mandate of protecting the work on behalf of them.
The succession of implementation depends mostly on correct information. So in order the office to implement well her duties, among other things it needs accurate and correct information in order to know the artist and kinds of artistic work which they are dealing with. Either to understand the extent of their creation and how many among them regard their creations as their work (employment) without themselves to know.
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For more information, Contact
Mazizini Police Post in Sheria House Building at Third Floor. Sub office at Gombani (Pemba) within the new building of the Government's Offices at Third Floor.