Deal sheet
- Status
- OPEN AND CONTRADICTORY. At a meeting in Lilongwe on or around 3 August 2026, COSOMA told Akometsi Limited and Madness Entertainment that a 20% deduction labelled "Administration Fee" on individual royalty statements was a "system error": the money is statutory withholding tax, not an additional charge COSOMA keeps, and the label on future statements would be corrected. Reported by The Maravi Post and Times of Malawi, both 4-5 August 2026. In the same reporting, Times of Malawi directly quotes COSOMA's own Executive Director, Dora Makwinja, describing the identical structure differently: "Sixty [percent] is distributed to rights holders and 20 percent is what comes to Cosoma for the management and administration." That is COSOMA's own chief executive, on the record, calling the 20% Cosoma's own management and administration take, not tax passed to the Malawi Revenue Authority. No source read reconciles her quote with COSOMA's "system error, it's actually tax" position reported in the same article and in The Maravi Post's account of the same meeting. As of this record's research cutoff (3 November 2026), no corrected royalty statement, no reconciliation of the two accounts, and no resolution of the two companies' separate complaint (that distribution is based entirely on CD/DVD burning-centre data, not digital consumption) had been reported by any outlet checked.
- Type
- Licensing
- Parties
- Copyright Society of Malawi, Akometsi Limited, Madness Entertainment
- Amount
- Malawian Kwacha (MWK) COSOMA collected approximately K3 billion in Blank Media Levy revenue in the year reported. Of that, a reported breakdown gives K150 million (5%) to the Malawi Revenue Authority as an administration fee, K150 million (5%) to government via the Ministry of Finance, K300 million (10%) to the Copyright Fund, and K1.8 billion (60%) earmarked for rights holders. Those four figures sum to K2.4 billion, not the stated K3 billion collected; no source read accounts for the remaining K600 million. A further 20% (K360 million) is then deducted from the K1.8 billion rights-holder share, leaving about K1.44 billion, which one of the companies in this dispute calculates as roughly 48% of the total K3 billion collected.
- Rights covered
- This is not an ownership, licensing or catalogue transaction. COSOMA is Malawi's sole statutory copyright collecting society, administering the Blank Media Levy, a remuneration right introduced in 2011 that charges a fee on blank recording media (CDs, DVDs and other storage devices) to compensate rights holders, musicians, filmmakers and writers for private copying. No master recording, composition or publishing right changes hands under this scheme; COSOMA collects and redistributes a statutory levy on behalf of its full membership. The dispute here concerns the transparency and characterisation of deductions COSOMA takes before passing on the rights holders' share, and the data method (CD/DVD burning-centre logs rather than digital consumption) used to calculate individual payouts, not any transfer of rights.
- Territory
- Malawi
- Announced
- 2026-08-03
- Primary document
- Trade press
- Sources
- Times of Malawi, "Creative industry managers bemoan Blank Media Levy gaps," by Jimmy Chazama, published 5 August 2026 (last updated 2026-08-05 13:13). Live HTTP 200 confirmed 3 November 2026. Names Dora Makwinja (Executive Director, COSOMA), Kelvin Sulugwe (Managing Director, Akometsi Limited) and Kelvin Ngumuya (Madness Entertainment) directly, carries Makwinja's own quote describing the 20% deduction as Cosoma's management and administration share, and reports the separate withholding-tax/system-error account. Fetched and read in full. · The Maravi Post, "Malawi Creative Firms Push COSOMA to Abandon 'Archaic' Royalty System After Dramatic Meeting," dateline Lilongwe, published 4-5 August 2026. Live HTTP 200 confirmed 3 November 2026. Independently names the same four officials and lawyers (Henry Mvula, Ntchindi Chiyamwaka), describes the nearly four-hour meeting, and carries Sulugwe's quote: Malawi "cannot build a 21st-century creative economy using 20th-century evidence." Spells his surname "Sulugwe" and calls him CEO of Akometsi Ltd, differing from Times of Malawi's "Managing Director" title, a discrepancy this record does not resolve. · Malawi24, "Ignoring streaming boom: COSOMA still relies on CD burning data for royalty payouts," by Manson Msukwa, published 4 August 2026. Live HTTP 200 confirmed 3 November 2026. Source of the K3 billion collection figure, the K150m/K150m/K300m/K1.8bn breakdown (which this record notes sums to K2.4bn, not K3bn), the K360m/20% withholding-tax deduction, and the CD/DVD burning-centre distribution methodology. Spells the same executive's surname "Sulungwe." · Nation Online, "Creatives query Cosoma on royalty distribution," by Wantwa Mwamlima, published 30 July 2026. Live HTTP 200 confirmed 3 November 2026. Reports the earlier, failed meeting attempt at COSOMA's Lilongwe office, Ngumuya's on-the-record complaint about "lack of transparency and accountability," and Makwinja's response that she was in Blantyre on other official duties.
Read this before citing: This record rests entirely on four independent Malawian news and trade outlets (Times of Malawi, The Maravi Post, Malawi24, Nation Online), not on a statement published by any named party. COSOMA's own website, cosoma.mw, was checked directly by this desk on 3 November 2026 at several paths (homepage, about-cosoma, blank-media-levy, news, press) and returned HTTP 403 on every request, a bot-wall; no COSOMA press release, correction notice or BML policy page could be independently verified. Akometsi Limited's own site, akometsi.com, returned HTTP 429 (rate-limited) on every attempt during this research window and could not be used as a source. Four further points are stated as open, not resolved: (1) Makwinja's own quoted description of the 20% as Cosoma's management-and-administration share directly contradicts the "system error, it's withholding tax" account reported in the same coverage window, and no source reconciles the two; (2) Malawi24's own K150m/K150m/K300m/K1.8bn breakdown of the K3 billion collected totals K2.4 billion, leaving K600 million unaccounted for by any source checked; (3) the lead Akometsi executive's surname is spelled two different ways ("Sulugwe" by The Maravi Post and Times of Malawi, "Sulungwe" by Malawi24) and his title is given as both Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer across outlets; (4) no source gives the exact date of the AGM at which COSOMA members rejected a digital-consumption-data proposal, only that it preceded the August 2026 dispute. Malawi has no public company registry this desk could query to independently verify Akometsi Limited's or Madness Entertainment's legal registration.
