ABSTRACT
The name of the children’s song sung both in Arusha and Dar es Salaam is “Zoom-Zoom-Zoom.” Ownership, however, in African contexts is not always connected to the way people view a song or other similar work. To avoid the pitfalls of having a song labeled “folklore” and therefore “authorless,” many artists who professionally perform traditional music opt to copyright their works. A common assumption is that any song that is as well known as “Zoom-Zoom-Zoom” is in the public domain, meaning that it can be sung and recorded by anyone. The introduction of the 1999 Tanzanian Copyright Act, for instance, brought increased awareness among many musicians about the need to identify the composer of both the lyrics and music of a song, something that was often simply granted to the director of bands in the past.
