East Africa’s top music distribution platform, Mdundo with over 4400 artists has denied any wrongdoing after a cross-section of upcoming artists claimed a ‘United FRONT’ yesterday morning to terminate their contracts with the firm.
Posting on Facebook, a group of artists said, “We Feel that our INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY is Infringed and Its High Time we stood UNITED and Protect our own,we need to streamline all the infrastructure and structures that come with it for the sake of our Arts and Future generations”
The group said the reasons towards this move included breach of contract by Mdundo, argued that Mdundo paid artists peanuts and as well misrepresented and exploited them.
According to the group, the exploitation included the firm playing foreign music during their own own events or shows, exploitation of artists as free marketing agents for Mdundo’s corporate clients such as Kentucky Fried Chicken and the lack of a transparent monitoring system for the music downloads. The disgruntled artists also claimed the firm was using them for free marketing.
The artists argued that Mdundo.com does not in any way share/market them or their products hence the 30% commision on the sales is unfair. UNFAIR CUT. This Accounts for SO MANY OTHER REASONS for our Dis-ASSOCIATION with the Music Providers. The artists had planned to stage a demo at the Mdundo offices after visiting an artist who had been admitted at Nairobi Hospital after a fatal accident.
However, Speaking exclusively to TechMoran, Martin M. Nielsen CEO & Co-Founder, Mdundo.com said,”In brief, the statement is a lie and it’s hard for us to fight it. We are continuing business as usual.”
Artists simply sign up to Mdundo.com and leave at their pleasure. The firm also says the artists have to let their fans know their music can be found on Mdundo by providing download links on their various social media pages just as SoundCloud.
“We do not market for artists, our sole purpose is music distribution; however we have a news site, http://mdundo.com/news in which as an artist if you have anything you feel should be put out to fans from opinion pieces to new music can be shared out by simply sending an email to news@mdundo.com.
Mdundo says it makes its money on advertisements placed on the site. This money is also shared with the artists equally. The firm says it pays artists a total of 4Ksh per download but the price can change. Artists also have full access to all the statistics of the number of downloads their tracks get.