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Geez Creative Says Ethiopian Artists Have Direct Royalty Deals With ASCAP and Sentric Music. Neither Record Shows One

Deal sheet

Status
Claimed by one side only. Geez Creative's CEO told The Reporter (Ethiopia) on 31 October 2026 that the company has 'direct partnerships' with ASCAP and Sentric Music covering international royalty collection for Ethiopian songwriters and artists. Neither organisation's own public materials name Ethiopia, Geez Creative, or this arrangement.
Type
Distribution, Publishing
Parties
Geez Creative, ASCAP, Sentric Music
Amount
Not disclosed
Rights covered
Claimed: composition (publishing) and master-recording royalty collection for Ethiopian songwriters and artists in international markets, via Geez Creative acting as local catalogue-management and settlement partner
Territory
Ethiopia, outbound to the international markets ASCAP (US) and Sentric Music (UK) operate in; no territory limit stated
Announced
2026-10-31
Primary document
Trade press
Sources
The Reporter (Ethiopia), 31 October 2026, interview with Geez Creative CEO Dawit Solomon. The live page returns a Cloudflare error to automated requests from this server; this is an archived capture made the same day, read in full. · Sentric Music's own current website, checked 31 October 2026: no mention of Ethiopia, Geez Creative or any African distributor · UK Companies House PSC register, Sentric Music Limited (05721428) · UK Companies House PSC register, Sentric Music Group Limited (12566815)

Read this before citing: This record states what one party said, checked against what the two named counterparties themselves publish. Sentric Music's current website and the UK statutory registers for Sentric Music Limited and its parent Sentric Music Group Limited make no mention of Ethiopia or Geez Creative. ASCAP's own affiliated-foreign-societies page returned an access-denied response to this server and could not be read directly; cross-checked instead against reciprocal-society lists published by SOCAN and APRA AMCOS, which list recognised collecting societies for Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa but none for Ethiopia, consistent with Ethiopia having no CISAC-member society for a reciprocal agreement to run through. None of this proves the arrangement is false: many distributor-to-rights-body agreements are never publicised, and ASCAP accepts individual songwriter members directly regardless of country, which would not require a 'partnership' with any local company. What could not be established either way is stated as such, not inferred.

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