Piracy, which has become a plague in the country, is having a negative impact on the music industry.

Thohoyandou in Thulamela has not been spared. People on every corner of the town are selling CDs for as little as R5 and artists have been struggling to fight the scourge.

This all this could soon be history as artists in Thohoyandou have cleaned up the town and rid it of piracy.

In a show of force, artists came together and held a marathon two-day free live concert which started on Friday and ended on Saturday. By the look of things, happy days are set to return to the industry that was on the brink of collapse.

According to the facilitator, businessman Johnny Khubana who owns JTK Entertainment, the concert was to show that artists are united against piracy. “We are here to speak in one voice that music piracy is a crime and that music piracy makes musicians very poor. DVD and CD piracy is illegal and we are determined to root it out,” said Khubana.

Khubana, who handles many local artists, said they were concerned about piracy which was spiraling and was taking the music industry to the grave. “We could not just lie down and watch greedy pirates reaping what they did not sow. We had to stand up and fight them until they retreated,” said Khubana.

He said many record shops and artists had gone bankrupt because of piracy and many of the artists had been reduced to beggars and indigents. “Our once booming business has gone to the dogs. They eat while we starve, and we could not just watch and pretend as if everything was normal. We acted and we are winning; we have managed to clean the town of piracy,” said Khubana

Khubana said they had embarked on the clean-up campaign a fortnight ago. Together with the Thulamela Municipality, the police and a private security company, First Professional Care, they managed to clean up the whole of Thohoyandou and Sibasa, but they are determined to continue until piracy is history.

They confiscated more than 15 000 CDs and DVDs in two weeks, which goes to show how rife piracy is in the towns. He said they had eight specially trained security officers for anti-piracy activities and they were just waiting for big companies in Gauteng to commission them to look after their work, which was being sold illegally in the streets for next to nothing.

Legendary reggae artist Colbert Mukwevho could not hide his glee. “ We are very excited as artists. It shows the outside world that we are united against piracy and we will continue fighting for what is rightfully ours until we win the war,” he said.

Big name artists like Mukwevho and Tshigomboza performed with their live bands while many mimed their music.