SAMRO Injects R2.5 Million To Boost Music Creation and Members’ Earning Potential
Hot on the heels of the recently announced bursary to sponsor SAMRO members to learn the business of Music at Boston City Campus, the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) has announced a R2.5 million capital injection to spur local music creation.
Each successful applicant, who must be a member of SAMRO, will receive a grant of up to R25 000.00 (Twenty-Five Thousand Rand) to cover the costs of creating new music such as the use of a professional recording studio.
The SAMRO Music Creation Support Fund was initiated in 2021 as a vehicle to enable SAMRO members to create new musical works.
SAMRO is a voluntary member-based organisation with a primary mandate to collect royalties from music users including broadcasters, retailers and digital platforms such as Tik Tok, Netflix and Facebook amongst others. The amount distributed periodically to each member as royalties is dependent on how frequently the member’s music has been featured on these platforms.
Older musical works tend to receive less attention from music users as people’s tastes in music evolve resulting in the member’s share of royalties declining over time. The Music Creation Support Fund is one avenue that will give artists’ earning potential another shot in the arm.
SAMRO believes that its members are beginning to appreciate the need to continually produce new music in order to maintain a certain level of royalty earnings and in part explains the overwhelming response to this initiative.
This year SAMRO received 586 applications from members to receive the music creation grant, a figure which represents more than double the applications in the previous year.
Applications were assessed by an independent committee of judges who worked hard and diligently to ensure that each application received a fair assessment. Applications were assessed on the quality of the applicant’s idea, the proposed budget for the project and final product’s viability.
After many hours of deliberation, the committee selected 100 SAMRO members who will receive their grants in the coming month.
A list of the successful applicants can be found here. (https://tinyurl.com/3dpsf5dv)
