CAPASSO
South African mechanical and digital rights licensing agency, based in Johannesburg.
- Based in
- Johannesburg, South Africa
- Founded
- 2014
- Website
- capasso.co.za
CAPASSO, the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association, is a South African rights-licensing agency based in Johannesburg. It licenses mechanical and digital reproduction rights, the right that arises whenever a recording is copied or transferred between formats, and collects and distributes the resulting royalties to composer, author and publisher members.
CAPASSO was incorporated in 2014 through a merger of the Southern African Music Rights Organisation’s (SAMRO) mechanical rights administration arm with NORM, the National Organisation of Reproduction Rights in Music, following a government review that recommended a single collecting society per right in South Africa. SAMRO retained performance rights licensing; CAPASSO’s board carries equal SAMRO and NORM representation alongside an independent chair.
It works alongside SAMRO and SAMPRA within South Africa’s collective-licensing system, and has since extended its mandate to license mechanical and performing rights for streaming on behalf of several other African national societies.
