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Boy band Sauti Sol has lost more than 2,000 subscribers on YouTube a day after threatening to sue Raila Odinga's Azimio Coalition.
Sauti Sol, who come in second with the highest number of subscribers on YouTube after Otile Brown, dropped from 905,000 to 903,000 subscribers. Otile Brown has 1.15 million subscribers.
Responding to the report, Bien Aime, one of the band members, encouraged those no longer interested in their content to unsubscribe.
"Time will reveal. Wale wanashuka washuke saa hii. Stage yao imefika," wrote Bien on Instagram.
On Wednesday morning, Sauti Sol took to Instagram seeking to enlighten Kenyans about Intellectual property rights after several people trolled them on Twitter.
"In the past few days, there has been a lot of disinformation online and it is clear that majority of people are uninformed about Intellectual property rights," posted Sauti Sol on Instagram.
The band's move came after the Music Copyright of Kenya CEO Ezekiel Mutua said the Azimio coalition did not breach any copyright law by playing their hit song 'Extravaganza' while unveiling Raila's running mate.
In their statement on Monday evening, Sauti Sol said they did not license the song to the Azimio la Umoja campaign.
"We did not license this song to the Azimio la Umoja campaign neither did we give any consent for its use in the announcement of their Vice-Presidential candidate. We are disappointed by the Azimio la Umoja Campaign's blatant disregard of our right to control the use of our copyright," said Sauti Sol in the statement.
However, after a heated debate among Kenyans on Twitter, the Kenya Copyright Board (Kecobo) explained why Azimio was at fault for using Sauti Sol's song.
"It is in public domain that Azimio has obtained a public performance licence allowing it to play both local and international music at its rallies and events. However, the use of sound recording as soundtrack with visual images in a film, video, television show, commercial or other audio-visual production is not part of those users authorised by a public performance license.
"In this case, synchronised rights are at issue and as such, a synchronised license is needed. A synchronised license can only be issued by the composer and publisher. They have the authority to negotiate and issue a synchronized license," said Edward Sigei, Kecobo Executive Director.
