Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), the nation’s sole government approved collective management organization for musical works and sound recordings, is ready for an unprecedented show down in courts across Nigeria with copyright infringers and royalty defaulters.
To ensure that the battle is fought with no holds bared, COSON is rapidly expanding and strengthening its legal team and engaging different sets of crack lawyers.
Since the beginning of the year, officers of COSON and the society’s consultants have been collecting detailed information in different parts of the country with respect to every organization which continues to deploy music without any copyright licence or the payment of music copyright royalties.
Many meetings have also been held with different teams of Intellectual Property lawyers at the society’s headquarters in Lagos, in Abuja and at several other locations in the country targeted for the legal onslaught.
The list of those to face COSON’s legal fire has been drawn and the strategies to take each of them on, has been mapped out.
Confirming what is planned to be the most extensive legal attack against intellectual property abuse in any country, COSON Chairman, Tony Okoroji said, “We have no choice. We are fighting this war with every arsenal we can muster.
“We are deploying every resource at our disposal. We intend to win this war once and for all and change the intellectual property landscape in Nigeria. For all the defaulting broadcasting stations, we have notified the Broadcasting Organizations of Nigeria (BON), the Independent Broadcasting Association of Nigeria (IBAN) and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC).
“We have also informed the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC). With respect to the hotels, restaurants, events venues and events organizers, we have met with the leadership of both the Hotel & Personnel Services Employers Association of Nigeria (HOPESEA) & Hotel Owners Forum (HOFA), the two main hotel associations in the country. They are fully briefed.
“We have left them in no doubt as to what we are about to do. With respect to telephone companies and transport companies, our lawyers are in touch with them.
“The deployment of music without a licence in a public or commercial setting in Nigeria will not happen anymore. We have asked our lawyers to go on rampage. Our brief to them is clear: there will be no untouchables and no sacred cows.”
Continuing, the former President of PMAN and well known Pan African Intellectual Property activist said, “Anyone familiar with COSON knows that if we say that we are going to do something, we are going to do it.
“At COSON, we are resolute that the labour of Nigerian musicians and investors in the music industry who toil every day to make people happy will no longer be in vain. They cannot make people happy and be sad themselves.
“Anyone intending to exploit their sweat to serve his own purpose, has COSON to deal with. The recent crash in the price of crude oil should be a lesson that Nigeria can no longer afford to waste her tremendous intellectual property assets.
“Our music and our movies in great demand everywhere in the world must count for something. They should contribute significantly to the nation’s GDP and provide jobs for hundreds of thousands of our citizens. The era of monkey dey work, baboon dey chop is over.”
Speaking on the up-coming legal rampage, COSON General Manager, Chinedu Chukwuji said “We have tried everything: public relations, discussions, negotiations and moral suasion but it is clear that there are people who are down-right recalcitrant and have disdain for the rights and wellbeing of creative people.
“COSON did not achieve the success we are known for by being lily livered. If anybody hits us, we will hit back.
“We have gone to court against the nation’s biggest banks, the topmost hotels in the land, the country’s best known broadcast stations and even state governments. That is how we have been able to collect and distribute the hundreds of millions of Naira that have gone to various music industry right holders.
“There is however billions of Naira belonging to them out there. We intend to collect this, distribute the money and make investment in the Nigerian music industry attractive once again.
“More than any other organization in the history of Nigeria, COSON is using the law to effect social and economic change.
“We respect everyone but anyone who does not respect the musicians of Nigeria and those belonging to the 135 collective management organizations from every continent in the world which are represented by COSON should be ready to face imminent fire from us. It is that simple.”
