earnings by local musicians—which we interpret as the development dimension of the issue. The work was financed by a small grant from the Bank-Netherlands Partnership Program (BNPP).

The intent is to include a half-dozen or so countries. Work has begun in Senegal, and a diagnostic study in Mali began in spring 2003 that will involve some of the people who have contributed in Senegal. Frank J. Penna, managing director of the Policy Sciences Center, Inc., has organized the work. We refer to the contributors informally as the WB– PSC team.

The work program on African music took to heart the new (when the work began) Bank emphasis on local ownership and empowerment of local stakeholders. As soon as the relevant government ministries had approved development of a strategy for the music industry, the WB–PSC team held meetings in Dakar with local musicians to invite them to explain their problems and to suggest solutions.

The musicians came forward with a long list of complaints. We repeat here a few of those listed in the study:

- Most Senegalese musicians make their living from the local market. Of some 30,000 musicians, perhaps a dozen derive income from foreign sales.

- Piracy of local music is rampant. Cassettes sold locally are quickly counterfeited, and radio stations play the music without paying royalties. Most musicians are unaware that there are laws to combat such piracy, they do not know how to use the laws, and they do not have the resources to engage lawyers to represent them.

- The local collection agency is ineffectual. Pirates have more resources at their disposal and better connections with influential politicians than does the collection agency.

- The tax burden is disproportionate, for example, as imports, musical instruments are treated as consumer goods rather than as producer goods, and the rate of collection of taxes on concerts/performances is higher than the rate on economic activity elsewhere in the economy.

- There is little business infrastructure—there are few managers or administrators in the music field. The few recording studios are able to charge monopoly prices.

- Live performances are a major source of income but performance venues are expensive. Because musical instruments and sound equipment are expensive, they often belong to the hotel, bar, or concert hall. Musicians must kick back a significant part of their earnings for use of the instruments and equipment.

- Musicians who enjoy success in the international market produce and record their music in foreign studios; thus, their success does not provide jobs for sound technicians in Africa.

“Big fish eat little fish” is how Africans describe the economic structure of the music industry. Financial institutions in Africa will not lend to the music industry, and rampant piracy and weak collection societies make the collection of royalties problematic. Elite musicians or otherwise capitalized individuals who have their own recording studios pay local composers and performers on a work-for-hire basis. When the workday is done the output belongs to the hirer, as with working in a factory or contributing a chapter to a scholarly book. (Usually a contributor to a scholarly book receives an honorarium upon delivery of his or her contribution, while the copyright for the book rests with the 11