Botswana: Music Lab pens deal with SA’s Sheer Publishing Africa

This makes Music Lab the first company in Botswana to provide music publishing. Seabelo Modibe, Music Lab’s Director said Music Lab already represents 40 percent of the South African music that is played in our local radio stations.

“The idea is not to focus on royalty collection but rather to market artists so that they can endure and penetrate further,” he said.

While speaking on how they would make money, Modibe said the agreement is that they get a certain percentage of what they have collected in royalties. He explained that his company has already signed with one of the local producers, Robert Daggie, and they will be training others to become sub-publishers.

Modibe said they are also looking forward to working with a lot of local artists whose music regularly play on radio stations. He, however, said since they are just starting, he will take a minimum of 20 artists.

He also highlighted that he will represent folklore musicians for free, making it his company’s social responsibility. “This involves a lot of work and you can imagine how many songs I will be managing. With Daggie only, we are talking of more than three hundred songs,” he said.

Sheer Publishing is one of Africa’s largest independent publishing houses and is currently looking to expand its clientele within the African diaspora. Their mission is to provide a comprehensive range of copyright services to clients, both domestic and international.

The company has well over eighteen years’ experience of administration of intellectual property rights nationally and globally. Sheer Publishing has close links with the collecting societies based all over the world. It is also a direct member of SAMRO, MCSK and COSON, the copyright collection societies in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria respectively.