Bubblegum queen Mercy Pakela has been accused of theft of intellectual property by legendary music producer and hitmaker Godfrey Nzuza, aka Sipho Mashazi.
Mashazi, who composed Pakela’s hit songs, including Ayashisa Amateki, confronted the singer and warned her to credit him for the songs she recently uploaded on Spotify or face the music.
On the cover of the tunes, which were released about three decades ago, Mashazi is credited as a composer. However, on the popular digital platform, Pakela credited herself as the composer.
The altercation between Mashazi and Pakela came to the fore after their text messages were leaked to Sunday World by a music executive who did not approve of Pakela’s alleged caper.
In the messages that we have seen, Mashazi warned Pakela, after discovering the alleged theft, that he would write to the music platform and ask its owners to take down the ditties if she did not credit him for his artistic creativity.
“Mercy, I hope this correspondence finds you well. The reason for me to write to you is to express the disappointment I have in you.
“What you’re doing is wrong. It’s a crime; it’s going to be treated as such. It is punishable by law. The rights you are trampling on are legally protected. What you’re doing is intellectual property theft and fraud.
“I would like to advise you to reconsider your actions and refrain from doing that. You know you’re stealing. What you are doing to fraudulently change the credits on the songs that I wrote is wrong,” Nzuza wrote.
“To call yourself a songwriter and producer is not true because at that time you were just a singer.”
Pakela fired back at Nzuza and dared him to go ahead.
“You are still my brother, Nzuza. It’s your democratic right, mntaka bawo. I’m dealing with my performance right of remuneration as it’s stipulated in the performers rights bill.
“And funny Nzuza, there are so many artists who remixed the songs, and as the first artist who branded the songs with my creativity, I have a right to remix the songs to generate income. And luckily, I’m studying cultural policy management course, I now know my rights,” she hit back.
Nzuza warned Pakela not to be disingenuous and delusional and to stop pretending not to understand music law.
“Mercy, I don’t like what you are doing. I’m not talking about performance rights here; I’m talking about copyright, publishing and misleading information by changing credits on the songs. You never wrote or produced anything. You were a singer, performer period,” he wrote to her.
He added, “Don’t play dumb now; if you are studying, you should know better. Don’t be stubborn; this is going to turn out very badly. I’m not scaring you.
“To remix is not an easy way out. Copyright credits stay the same, and permission has to be acquired for such purposes whether you are a singer or performer. Knowing your rights is good but please don’t steal and claim songs that you never wrote and say they are 100 percent yours,” charged Nzuza.
He warned Pakela that what she did constituted fraud. “That’s fraud, period. If you sample any of the recorded songs, you need permission, and you must credit accordingly; don’t steal. I don’t want to confront you head-on. I thought you were going to come to your senses. I thought we still had a chance to fix this. I know all the songs that you have stolen and claimed falsely. Out of respect and our long-standing relationship, please fix this before it gets bad,” said the infuriated Nzuza.
He also warned her that he would be writing to Spotify and ask them to take down the songs for infringement of intellectual property.
