2. The 1st Respondent is a statutory corporation established under the laws of Uganda and is
the National Intellectual Property Office with power, mandate and authority to, inter alia,
register, promote and safeguard Intellectual Property rights and the interests of consumers
of its registration services as well as license, regulate, oversee the operations of the
licensed Collecting Societies, establish an intelligent network monitoring system to
monitor, compliance, collections, distributions and quality of service of Collecting
Societies.
3. That the 2nd respondent as a Collecting Society is mandated by law, international treaties
and conventions to protect, represent local and international producers of audio visual
works by managing their copyright in films and other audio-visual works within this
framework as well as to collects royalties for its members and signatories to the various
copyright treaties as stated in the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act 2006 and the
Regulations thereunder.
4. That several film makers and producers have on several occasions sought for information
regarding the operations of the 2nd Respondent but to no avail. The 2nd Respondent has
even refused to avail us with membership documentation to enable us join the institution
and offer ourselves for positions of leadership with hope of creating a better
administration regime.
5. That the members have sought information relating to but not limited to audited books of
accounts, income and expenditures, executive committee, membership list, operations of
the 2nd Respondent and the royalties collection and distribution reports but 2nd respondent
did not make any substantive response on the said matters as raised by our legal
representative.
6. That as members of our association made up of majorly film makers they have high
expectations in the Collecting Society specifically relating to the collection and
distribution of royalties to those that largely invest into production of movies. The 2nd
Respondent a Collecting Society with similar mandate in Uganda has from the time of it’s
licensing by the 1st Respondent deliberately failed and or neglected to effect any
collection/distribution of royalties for its members yet works continue to be exploited
world over including Television Stations, Hotels, Bars and YouTube.
7. That the 2nd Respondent has not commenced operations for two (2) consecutive years as it
has failed to deliver on any of its principal objectives and mandate and therefore its
Collecting Society License should have been cancelled by the 1st Respondent.
8. That on several occasions some of the applicants have carried on raids in search for
copyright infringing movies and I have realised that the 2nd Respondent has since
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