Deal sheet
- Status
- CHAD'S STATE BROADCASTER WAS SUPPOSED TO FUND MUSICIANS' ROYALTIES FOR YEARS. IN JANUARY 2025, ARTISTS WERE PAID OUT OF BAR AND RESTAURANT FEES INSTEAD, AND THE BROADCASTER'S OWN DEBT WAS STILL UNPAID. BUTDRA (Bureau Tchadien du Droit d'Auteur), Chad's sole copyright collecting society, created by Law No. 005/PR/2003, launched a partial 2024-royalty payout to artists on 17 January 2025, funded from the flat annual fees BUTDRA collects from bars, restaurants and other small venues. The payout was explicitly described by its own organiser as a stopgap. It did not include any money from ONAMA (Office National des Médias Audiovisuels), Chad's state broadcaster and, per Chadian press reporting, BUTDRA's single largest disputed debtor. ONAMA is required to devote 6 percent of its annual budget to copyright royalties; artists' representatives say it did not honour that commitment for three to four years running. Two named coordinators of Chad's artists' platforms gave two different figures, in the same week, for what ONAMA owes: 190 million CFA francs (Masngar Jonas Massingo, Coordination Nationale des Artistes Tchadiens) and 195 million CFA francs (Dounia Tog-yangar, a separate artists'-platform coordinator). Neither figure is drawn from an ONAMA financial statement; no source checked for this record quotes an ONAMA official on the debt at all. A march planned by artists' platforms for 8 January 2025 was banned nationwide by Chad's Minister of Public Security citing risk of public disorder; no source found names the march's cause explicitly, though Tchadinfos' own report of the royalty payout links the ban to the ONAMA dispute with the phrase 'à ce sujet' ('on this subject'). No source published through the most recent checked reporting (ONAMA's own mid-2026 board and audit coverage) shows ONAMA ever paid any part of the disputed 190-195 million francs.
- Type
- Settlement
- Parties
- Bureau Tchadien du Droit d’Auteur, Office National des Médias Audiovisuels
- Amount
- XAF 190,000,000 to 195,000,000 (disputed between two named sources; see caveat)
- Rights covered
- STATUTORY COPYRIGHT-ROYALTY COLLECTION AND DISTRIBUTION OBLIGATION ONLY. No master recording, composition or publishing right changes ownership, is licensed, or is assigned under this record. This is a dispute over an unpaid royalty debt owed by a broadcaster to a collecting society, not a rights transaction.
- Territory
- Chad
- Announced
- 2025-01-17
- Primary document
- Trade press
- Sources
- Tchadinfos, "Culture : début du paiement des droits d'auteur aux artistes," byline La rédaction, published 17 January 2025. Fetched and read in full. · VOA Afrique, 19 January 2025. Cites the 195 million CFA franc figure from artists'-platform coordinator Dounia Tog-yangar and a direct quote from MPCT coordinator Saleh Mahamat Ahmat calling the interim payout "une solution aléatoire." Fetched and read in full. · VOA Afrique, byline André Kodmadjingar, published 20 January 2025. Corroborates months of non-payment and names ONAMA as the broadcaster that did not keep its commitments; does not independently confirm either disputed figure. Fetched and read in full. · Impact.sn, published 21 January 2025, citing VOA. States ONAMA's statutory obligation to devote 6 percent of its annual budget to copyright royalties and that it did not honour this commitment. Fetched and read in full. · Alwihda Info, published 7 January 2025. Reports Chad's Minister of Public Security banning a march by artists' platforms planned for 8 January 2025 nationwide, citing risk of public disorder; does not itself state the march's cause. Fetched and read in full. · ATPE, interview with BUTDRA Director General Moundinet Tchinpah, published 14 April 2023. Source for BUTDRA's legal basis under Law No. 005/PR/2003 (Article 119) and its chronic funding and enforcement problems. Fetched and read in full. · Music In Africa, published 9 January 2017, byline Kila Roskem Jean-Pierre. Historical background on BUTDRA's creation, tariff orders of 2008, and long-documented underfunding. Fetched and read in full. · ONAMA's own history page, "De l'ONRTV à l'ONAMA," describing its 2017/2018 formation from the former ONRTV and its role as Chad's state broadcaster. Fetched and read in full. · WIPO Lex record for Chad's Law No. 005/PR/2003 of 2 May 2003, the legal basis establishing BUTDRA and its collective-management mandate. Fetched and read in full.
Read this before citing: WHAT COULD NOT BE ESTABLISHED, STATED PLAINLY: (1) The exact amount ONAMA owes is genuinely disputed in the primary record, not just loosely reported: Tchadinfos (17 Jan 2025) quotes CONAT coordinator Masngar Jonas Massingo citing 190 million CFA francs; VOA Afrique (19 Jan 2025) quotes a different artists'-platform coordinator, Dounia Tog-yangar, citing 195 million. No source reviewed reconciles the two figures or cites an ONAMA-side accounting. (2) No ONAMA official is quoted, named, or given a right of reply in any of the six primary reports read for this record; every account of the debt comes from artists'-side coordinators or from unattributed press framing. (3) The connection between the banned 8 January 2025 march and the royalty dispute rests on contextual placement in a single article (Tchadinfos uses the transition phrase 'à ce sujet' immediately after describing the ONAMA debt), not an explicit statement that the march's cause was the dispute; Alwihda Info's own report of the ban names no cause at all. (4) No source found, including ONAMA's own site through its most recent 2026 content (a June 2026 board session and a July 2026 anti-corruption audit by Chad's independent anti-corruption authority, neither of which mentions copyright), shows ONAMA settling any part of the disputed debt after the January 2025 interim payout. (5) This record does not allege embezzlement or wrongdoing by any named individual; it reports a disclosed, disputed public funding shortfall and a partial workaround, as described in the cited press.
