There are strong indications that the music industry may yet again experience another big fight between music artistes in Nigeria and the broadcast outfits.
It
would be recalled that some months ago, the Nigerian entertainment industry was
almost brought down, when radio stations were directed not to play songs of
some top artistes in Nigeria. The likes of 2Face, Victor Uwaifo and many others
were affected by the directive due to royalty claims.
A
statement recently made available to First Weekly indicated that some
members of BON and IBAN have not met their obligations as signed in May 2014.
In
the statement, COSON urged BON and IBAN to “compel their members to act
responsibly and meet their obligations under the COSON/BON/IBAN/NBC/NCC music
copyright agreement signed in May 2014 without further delay.”
Speaking
during the ‘No Music Day’ activities at the Board Room of COSON on September 1,
COSON Chairman, Tony Okoroji said, “Sadly, we must draw the attention of the
nation to the fact that despite the substantially reduced tariffs and the
public pledge of the broadcasting industry to keep to the terms of the
COSON/BON/IBAN/NBC/NCC agreement, a good number of the broadcasting stations in
the country are still deploying music without paying the very low royalty
tariffs negotiated on their behalf with the help of the NBC and NCC.
“COSON
is therefore constrained to call on the leaderships of both BON and IBAN to
compel their members to act responsibly and meet their obligations without
further delay”.
Okoroji
added that, “We wish to make it clear that COSON has resolved to protect the
rights of music industry practitioners and to collect copyright royalties for
the use of their music and sound recordings in Nigeria. That resolve is rock
solid. We will not waver and there will be no sacred cows. If we need to go
back to the courts, we will. If we need to take other actions, we will. We wish
to repeat that it is far cheaper to obtain a COSON license for the music used
by anyone than to engage COSON in an expensive legal tussle.”
The
COSON boss asked the national and state assemblies to ensure that clear
provisions are made in the budgets of the different government-owned broadcast
stations for the payment of copyright royalties saying, “we refuse to accept a
situation where the stations continue with the open stealing of the
intellectual property of innocent creative people simply because ‘there is no
budget’ for the payment for the key raw material they deploy in their
operations.”
Okoroji
also requested the leaderships of the Hotel and Personal Services Employers
Association of Nigeria (HOPESEA) and Hotel Owners Forum Abuja (HOFA) to direct
each of their members to immediately respect the agreement, which they freely
entered into with COSON.
Commenting
on the recently launched ‘Operation No Hiding Place’ co-ordinated by COSON, the
former President of PMAN said that there will be no hiding place in Nigeria for
any person or organization intent on continuing with the abuse of the
intellectual property rights of innocent citizens.
“COSON is determined to substantially increase
the royalty distributable to stakeholders in the music industry to match the
massive use of music in our nation. That is why in 2013; COSON was compelled to
institute several multi billion naira law suits against some users of music and
sound recordings in Nigeria. We are ready to go the full hog and let the chips
fall anywhere,” he declared.
Meanwhile,
there was excitement recently at the office of COSON as the ‘Big Info Day’ was
held. The Lagos office of the body was practically run over by music industry
stakeholders, young and old on Tuesday, September 9, 2014.
The
interactive event, organized by COSON, was witnessed by several prominent faces
like Femi Lasode, Ras Kimono, Sunny Nneji; Efe Omorogbe, Azeezat Allen, Anne
Inyang, King Wadada amongst others.
The
‘Big Info Day’ was an occasion to share information with stakeholders on music
copyright royalty collection, distribution, documentation and the management of
rights in a rapidly changing industry received huge commendation from
participants.
One
of the highlights of the interactive session was the presentation by the COSON
Head of Documentation, Vincent Adawaisi, who took the stakeholders through the
A-Z of copyright royalties, documentation, distribution and other music
copyright related issues.
Another
highlight of the event was the issuance of Interested Party Information (IPI)
numbers to members of COSON, who were at the event.
According
to Adawaisi, who advised members to handle the IPI number with care, the
IPI-System is an international register used by CISAC societies around the
world and contains names of all holders of rights in protected works.
He
further stressed that the IPI system is important to ensure that members get
appropriate remuneration for their works used anywhere in the world as it
ensures the optimum documentation, distribution and accounting processes of the
CISAC societies globally.
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