SEYDONI AND MALI K7 THROW IN THE TOWEL

Piracy of the musical works.
Since a few years, the Malian artists are complaining about the piracy of their musical works. To protest in an official way against the silence of the politico-administrative authorities, Seydoni Mali SA and Mali K7 SA, two companies of production and duplication, decided to close their doors.

Wednesday March 16, 2005, Mali K7 SA and Seydoni Mali SA stopped working "Closed, victim of unfair competition and piracy", is the quite perceptible message that the companies of duplication of the place posted up in the buildings to inform their customers or possible visitors.
Seydoni Mali and Mali K7 animated Wednesday March 16 a joint press conference to explain their decision.
Philippe Berthier, Director of Mali K7, very angry against the authorities of the country did not hesitate to denounce their attitudes.
They reproach the authorities their timidity in the fight against the piracy of the musical works.
According to him, piracy kills the artists and the companies of production and duplication "There are so many pirated cassettes on the market that we are obliged to work only 3 to 4 days per month. It’s not easy, by working 4 days per month, to pay the wages. We cannot pay the electricity, the telephone”, he declared.
For that, he estimated that the closing of the enterprise is the best way indicated. On his side, Fousseyni Traoré, Director of Seydoni Mali recalled that only 2 % of the cassettes sold in the streets in Mali are legal "All the remainder is counterfeit which floods the market without embarrassment", he indicated.He then estimated that it is time that the authorities involve by the sides of the artists to dam up this plague which kills the Malian culture.
Idrissa Soumaoro, first price RFI Musique du monde 2004, put forward the gravity of the phenomenon. According to him, a musical news work is pirated in Mali two days after its marketing "We require from the government that it takes its responsibilities", he claimed.
If the persons in charge of enterprises and the elder artists expressed themselves with much diplomacy, the young artists vigorously denounced piracy.
Amkoullel the Fulani child required from the state that it take its responsibilities before the irreparable does occur. According to him, the artists will not any more let the things go on like that and will revenge themselves "We will take our responsibilities by moralizing the market for the sale for the cassettes".
The arranger Alassane Soumano posed the problem under the edge of the social security of the artists/musicians. He is outraged by the multiple interventions of the president of the Republic each time an artist is sick. According to him, it should have attracted the attention of the authorities on the fact that there’s a dysfunction somewhere.
Mr. Soumano estimates that the Malian music is very rich. However, he doesn’t manage to understand the poverty of the artists/musicians in Mali.
For this reason, he wants to know the use the state makes of the 35 % taken on the authors’ rights.
Alassane Soumano invited the Malian authorities to involve sincerely in the fight against piracy. According to him, if the things are done in the right way, there’s reason that an artist does not live of his work.
On her side, Mamou Sidibé, the virtuoso of Ganadougou, told one of her mishaps with the young retailers of pirated cassettes. According to her, these young people pushed bumptiousness to come to propose a pirated cassette to her of her work released on 1999. "This day, without the intervention of the police officers, they wanted to beat me because i refused to buy my own cassette pirated", she will say.

Malick Konaté of Mali K7 indicated that the decision of closing of their company marks their refusal to return 25 years back "We refuse to be obliged to go in Ivory Coast, in Nigeria or in France to make a cassette. For that we close to take the people as witness ", he concluded.

Assane Koné