N500M SUIT: Paul Play battles MTN, COSON

Paul Play’s recent copyright infringement lawsuit against MTN and Ultima Productions has led to a war of words between the R&B singer/producer and the management of the Copyright Society of Nigeria, (COSON).
Last week Paul Play who is being represented by popular Lagos lawyer, Festus Keyamo slammed a N500 million suit on MTN and Ultima LTD, the producers of the music reality TV show, Project Fame for the alleged unlawful use of his hit single ‘Angel of My Life’ on the talent show.
In response, the management of Ultima LTD released a press statement claiming that it has been making the annual statutory payments required for the use of musical works for artistes on the Project Fame show. The production outfit stated ‘we have a single agreement with their collection body, COSON, who in turn is responsible for dealing with each individual artiste. They are responsible for collecting such payments on behalf of Nigerian artistes, and Ultima has duly paid COSON for use of such music’.
COSON in a statement signed by its Head of Media Communication and Strategy, Chibueze Okereke maintained that Ultima LTD in the last few years has paid millions of Naira in copyright fees which have been distributed to various Nigerian copyright owners in musical works and sound recordings.
The COSON boss also stated, ‘Before this development, our officials had made strong efforts to resolve the issues with Paul who has collected royalties from the system on different occasions in the past’.
Paul Play on the other hand, has denied being a member of COSON, insisting he has never given the collecting body right to negotiate or receive any royalties on his behalf from any organisation.
When we spoke to the singer in a telephone conversation, he claimed ‘I do not recognize COSON, so if they have ever given me a cheque or paid me anything, let them provide an invoice proving it’.

The producer therefore maintains that such duties were being handled by his Intellectual Property manager, Ayo Rotimi.
The unfolding events now seem to be developing a different twist of accusations and counter-accusations between Paul Play and COSON. While COSON maintains having committed to the singer in the past, the singer denies any form of commitment made to him by the collecting body.

In 2011, COSON, said it distributed the sum of N25million to musicians as copyright royalties. In what was regarded as a laudable feat, the body in December, 2012 reportedly distributed another staggering sum of N100million to several musicians.
Most copyright lawsuits instituted in the past by Nigerian musicians against multinational companies have not yielded fruits. For example, in 2011, rapper/ producer, eLDee the Don filed a suit against Chinese phone manufacturing company, Tecno for preloading songs by Nigerian artistes onto memory cards embedded in their phones and sold without due consultation or permission from the artistes.
Also in the same year, another rapper, 2Shotz demanded N5m compensation from Nokia for the alleged illegal use of three of his songs as default ringtones for their NOKIA X3 without his consent.

Both cases died as fast as they were instituted.
Other artistes that have had daggers drawn with the corporates include Weird MC, Father U-Turn, and others.
‘Paul Play is barking up the wrong tree (MTN and Ultima), he should take up his case with COSON instead’ an industry expert had said of the initial lawsuit.
The ideal situation worldwide is having a collective rights administrator receive royalties on behalf of rights owners. Although the are pending legal issues and opinions are divided on the issue, COSON remains the sole collecting society approved by the Nigerian government.

February 25, 2013