Johannesburg – Hip-hop superstar Kwesta and award-winning American rapper Wale are butting heads with Telkom over the payment of royalties from their blockbuster song, Spirit, which the company used to advertise its prepaid products.
Sunday World can reveal that Kwesta and Wale’s record company Sheer Music, and Bridge IP, which represents the ditty’s producer Neo Makwa, dragged Telkom and two other companies to the Joburg High Court last week.
This comes after Telkom and the two companies, Wunderman Marketing and Wunderman Thompson, refused to pay them over R1.5-million in royalties for using the song in the famous Telkom prepaid advert.
The companies said R859 500 was for using the song in the advert on radio, TV and Telkom’s YouTube channel for 20 months, and R702 000 in its Behind the Scenes short film, which went viral on the internet.
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In court papers that Sunday World has seen, Sheer and Bridge IP said the tune, which has a cross-over appeal and amassed millions of rand in gigs and royalties for Kwesta in South Africa, has incorporated portions of the musical work titled These Tears, penned by UK-based artists Mark Bamford, Richard Farnshaw and Donald Jones from the group These Tears.
The trio, who released the song in the UK in 2009, later assigned their copyright to Duffnote , which appointed Bucks Music Group as the publisher of all its copyright works.
These Tears said that in January 2014, Bucks concluded a sub-publishing agreement with Sheer and authorised it to collect royalties on its behalf.
“Sheer is there as exclusively sub-licensed by Bucks to collect royalties payable to Bucks in respect of the Spirit Musical Work in South Africa,” it is noted in the papers.
The two companies said after royalty-sharing discussions Bucks concluded a royalty-sharing agreement in 2017 with Kwesta, Makwe and Wale for remixes, copyright renewals, extensions and reversionary interests.
Makwa would receive 16.6% , Wale 5% , Kwesta 11.6% and Bucks 66.6% .
Sheer was authorised to collect 83.33% of royalties on behalf of Bucks, Kwesta and Wale for the exploitation of the song.
They said Wunderman Marketing and Wunderman Thompson produced an advert titled “Prepaid Z’khipha More” for Telkom in May 2018 and used the song in a short film titled Behind the Scenes.
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This they did by reproducing the charts topper and later broadcast it from May 2018 to February 18 last year on radio, TV and Telkom’s YouTube channel without the authorisation of Sheer, Bridge IP and the three artists.
They said by so doing, they infringed on the copyright of the song.
The companies said they approached Telkom, Wunderman Marketing and Wunderman Thompson to demand payment of over R1.5-million, excluding value-added tax, with 83% of the sum payable to Sheer and 16.6% to Bridge IP, but they refused.
They are now asking the court to grant them judgment against the three companies and an order to force them to pay up the money.
Telkom spokesperson Moeketsi Mocumi said the telecoms company was unable to comment because the matter is before court.
“The matter between Sheer Music and Bridge IP against Wunderman is currently the subject of pending litigation. Telkom is aware of the claim as it has been cited as a defendant in the matter.” he said.
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