The entire series is made up of 52, eleven minutes cartoon series,Away from the paintings-turned-cartoon characters, the tales themselves are a collection of folktales from around Africa.
The television production, which is said to be one of the most ambitious animation production in East Africa, has left Tanzanian artists unhappy. Tanzania’s Tinga Tinga Artists Cooperative Society (TACS) and UK-based Tiger Aspects, the production company that produced the series, are warring. And up until a few days before last Christmas, it seemed inevitable that the tussle would end in up court.
Guys,you have to be careful when you sing these contracts, dont you put your sign on anything you dont understand whats on...wot really made me mad was this image
Watch CLaudia
Claudia Lloyd, head of animation at Tiger Aspects, was travelling in East Africa in 2005. It was in Tanzania that she came across the Tinga Tinga genre of art. She was quite impressed.
“Finally I met the cooperative’s representatives and we started talking.” Over the years, the production and marketing of the art has been under Tinga Artists Cooperative Society (TACS)
At this stage, it was just a dream project. But Claudia believed so much in the potential of an animated film project of African tales that she went ahead with a pilot project in 2006.
“The initial plan was to do the entire production in Tanzania but it soon became clear to me that that would not be possible,” says Claudia. “The internet connection in Tanzania was not reliable and there were more trained animators and editors in Nairobi than in Tanzania. So Nairobi it was.”
By the end of 2007, Claudia had successfully convinced BBC in London and Disney World in the US to buy rights to the concept.
And so with the necessary funding, she, and a small team from London returned to Nairobi, hired four Tinga Tinga artists from Tanzania, plus animators and editors and musicians, and set up shop at the Homeboyz studios.
To get the Tanzania artists, she had to go through their cooperative, TACS.“I went and presented the concept of making an animation film to the leaders of the cooperative. They were all really excited about it and happy that I would be putting their name on an international stage,” says Claudia. “We made contracts, written in both English and Kiswahili. I held barazas with TACS and invited them to ask any questions. I left the contract with them for them to seek legal advice before agreeing to sign it. In fact they were so happy with it they asked me to use the name Tinga Tinga, with their blessings, although the initial plan was to call the series ‘African Tails.’”
And so the contract was signed by not less than five representatives of TACS.
Two and a half years down the line, the series has hit the international stage, screening in several countries. The producers have produced not only the TV series but also a book, and branded mugs and plates and a line of puppets based on the main characters from the series.''
TACS on the other hand generally agrees with Claudia about the contract signing procedures, in word but not in spirit.
“It’s true that Claudia approached us through our cooperative,” says Abbasy Mbuka, TACS vice chairman. “And it’s true that some of our leaders signed the contracts she presented, but the real situation is that she took advantage of the uneducated leaders. They did not understand all that was written in the contract other than what Claudia herself said. They trusted her that what she said is what was in the contract. But as it has turned out, she did not disclose everything.”
Legal tussle
Mbuka admits that they did not have lawyers to go through the contracts. “We did not really understand how big this project was. Everything was not very clear to us. We had no idea that this would go beyond a small TV production into printing T-shirts, books, mugs and all these other things that have come up on the international stage!”
As the screenings continue to attract audiences, TACS feels cheated. Having agreed to a one-time settlement of about Tsh30 million (about Kshs 1.7 million), they feel its too little in comparison to how much the project is making.
Efforts to settle the dispute out of court have failed. A meeting scheduled for October 11 last year between TACS and Claudia’s team did not resolve anything and so TACS has hired lawyers and is preparing to go to court.
But Claudia says that they worked with Tanzanian lawyers in drafting the contract to be sure it was fair.
“The fact is that no one owns the name Tinga Tinga,” says Claudia. “Neither TACS nor I own it. But we have copyrighted the name Tinga Tinga Tales and that is what we own. The name Tinga Tinga is not even copyrightable because no on really owns it.”
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Read More about Tinga Tinga here
Take note:Common expression of art, including folklore, can be protected under intellectual property rights. The point is, folklore is property collectively owned by a people. In the case of Tinga Tinga, the late E S Tinga Tinga – after whom the style of painting was named – did not even invent it. He only made it popular by being creative enough to find a way to make some money from what was common practice by the Tanzanian people.
A quick search of Tanzania’s Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act (1999), section 24, shows that Tanzania recognises expressions of folklore to include folk tales, folk poetry, production of folk art, in particular drawings, paintings…among many others.
The definition of folklore in Tanzania’s Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act (1999), is intellectual property in the form of heritage passed on in communities by preceding generations to the next, with the expectation that the current generation will maintain, develop it and pass on,property that is collectively owned and which they all have to protect. This means the artistes themselves, the associations they operate in and within, all people wishing to benefit from folklore, and the national people are tasked with regulatory oversight obligations over the same."
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Read More about Tinga Tinga here
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