There is no disputing the fact that a lot of Nigerian musicians are living in luxury and affluence, flaunting their wealth in a way that makes music look like the easiest way to wealth. But there are many others who are so poor that one would wonder what the problem is. Mayowa Ayilara, the CEO of Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria (MCSN) offers an insight in this interview with PAUL UKPABIO. He also speaks about the efforts being made by MCSN to secure the sums due to some musicians through litigations against some corporate organisations.
DO you have any background in music? No. I am not a musician. I am just an administrator. I specialise in copyright administration. I work with Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria.
You have been associating with musicians and copyright society for a long time. When exactly did the relationship begin?
Nearly 28 years ago, I have been on the issue of protecting creator’s right. Sometimes, it is difficult to define and people didn’t appreciate it. But when we started to identify the rights and to harness the rights for the purpose of administering the rights vis a vis defending them, then it took shape.
In the past, people would go to the recording studio, they would perform music, they would record and release it to the public, everybody picks and uses it in their different businesses without remembering the persons who wrote or composed the music or performed it.
The only person who initially got something for the work was the person holding the microphone, whose picture is seen on the cover of the album. Those are the people sometimes compensated.
But are they always really compensated? The answer is no! I will cite the case of King Sunny Ade, who recently won about N500m case against his former recording companies, which shows that these people are never adequately compensated.
We created this platform, the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria, and gave meaning to these issues. I can tell you today that many of the hit songs that you have heard were written by people who you have never heard about, and who are never compensated for those intellectual properties.
For example, most of late Michael Jackson’s hit songs were not written by him. He only performed them and got all the accolades. The same thing happens in Nigeria.
What experience caused you to get involved with artistes?
I can say it was a divine call. I was just like other people who play music, dance to it and enjoy it, and life goes on. But by divine intervention, I met some other people who had been abroad and knew about this kind of business.
Alhaji Fatai Oladale Giwa, a renowned lawyer who was an agent, then the late Chief Alabi, an accountant; these were the guys who got the experience from the UK, who through interaction with the Performing Rights Society and the Mechanica l Copyright Protection Society of the United Kingdom, collaborated and brought the idea to Nigeria and invariably incorporated the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria.
It is through these individuals, particularly Alabi, that I got drafted into this business and the journey started. Today, we are a household name.
‘How we secured N6bn damages against Multichoice’
You couldn’t have done it without the musicians…
Yes, at that initial stage, those people were representing the foreigners, and many of the musicians then like I.K Dairo, Ojege Daniel, King Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey, Sonny Okosun and Victor Olaiya, among others, were led into the PRS organization. Many of them are dead now.
They were all members of the PRS United Kingdom. So when MCSN was incorporated and the news got around that now we have a Nigerian society, PRS advised its members to come home to join it. Some agreed but others did not. Some of them are still with PRS till tomorrow while many others came to MCSN.
A good example of those who came are King Sunny Ade who later became the chairman of MCSN; Chief I.K Dairo, and the list continued to grow and the younger generation of musicians continued to join; people like Orits Wiliki, Ras Kimono, Victor Essiet, Charly Boy, Onyeka Onwenu, Mike Okri and Stella Monye. We created awareness for the musicians to get royalty for their intellectual properties.
Have you been getting money for the musicians?
Yes, wherever music is used or played. The money for the musicians actually starts from where the music is made; that is the recording companies. But unfortunately, the record companies were seen as being exploitative. They get huge benefits from the musicians and give stipends.
Actually, many of the musicians were claimed to even owe the recording companies. That is because in those days, performance were the key factors for the upcoming musicians. At that point, all they wanted were their music to be heard and played at necessary public places.
The recording companies were giving them the instruments, buses and so on but were recouping it from royalties.
Now the real practice is the recording companies to pay them upfront. The second step is wherever the music is played in public places, the law expects you to pay the person for the copyright, and these are the places we collect money for the musician. The third place is broadcasting stations.
There is hardly any broadcasting station that will survive without playing music. So we go to the broadcasting stations to collect royalties to pay the musician.
How successful has it been?
If you go abroad, you can say that it has been very successful. But in the Nigerian situation, it has not been so successful. We are still growing and we have huge revenue out there to collect, and that is because the natural attitude of Nigerians is that when it comes to issues of law, they play ignorance or play too know.
They don’t want to obey the law easily, especially for something that they have been enjoying free like we were experiencing in those days.
They will tell us why should we pay you; I bought the cassette with my money? So until we communicated and ended up in court and then the court now started giving judgment with huge damages, people began to sit up. So it is taking us a long time to explain all these to people.
What is the volume of the litigation that MCSN is involved in right now?
We have quite a lot of litigations going on presently and I think there are no fewer than 50 going on in different courts. As we are getting out of one court, we are going into another one. The good thing is that we are the only organisation that are ready to pursue the issue of copyright to the Supreme Court and won. Those cases are serving as precedents, which are now making our activities easier. It is not totally easy though.
The organizations owing, are they paying?
Oh yes, they are paying.
So the musicians are smiling?
They can’t be totally smiling yet. It is like someone expecting N100 from you and you are giving him 15 Kobo. In a country of 120 million people with hotels and clubs everywhere, the question is, how many of those hotels are paying?
Do you love music?
Of course, I do. I am attracted to musicians by their performances and the message they communicate to people in their music.
PMAN seems to be in disarray. How does that affect the average musician and copyright generally?
PMAN is a separate organization an it’s the members who will best say what is wrong with PMAN. But I know that many PMAN members are also members of MCSN.
So I would advise that PMAN gets on its feet and work well to ensure that its members get their rights, and it should also be the focus of PMAN to ensure that an organization like ours, where its members are, works well so that we can collaborate to ensure good welfare for the members.
But we have not even started the collaboration or even started discussing how to reach an understanding on how we can work together.
We have seen musicians who were like a flash in the pan. They had a hit which was out there for a few years and then we hear nothing about them again. Do such people still collect royalties from MSCN?
Oh yes, they do. Once your music is still being listened to or exploited, you still get royalties, especially if it is protected under the law. Several of our members who are registered with us, even if they are dead, money still come in for them.
Has a woman ever emerged chairman of MCSN? If no, why?
No, because no woman has offered herself for election as a chairman. Even at a point when it was muted to appoint Onyeka Onwenu to succeed King Sunny Ade, she declined because of her many other heavy commitments then.
Your job at MCSN is more or less about debt recovery. Is your wife and family not worried about your life and safety?
My job is being misinterpreted as a debt recovery work as against being a service provider to users of music and creators of music. I am a kind of go-between two different parties. People are getting to fully understand the import of our job, which is to remove the legal challenges or obligations placed on users of musical works and the rights of creators.
Yes, my wife and family would naturally be worried about my life and safety, but being Christians who follow in my leadership at the home front, the fear and worries about my life and safety are really not there.
Are you impressed with the number of female musicians in the country?
Yes, I am very impressed but have some reservations about many of them being performers only, as against being creative. What I am trying to say is that not all of them are composing and writing original music and lyrics of their own.
A good number of them cannot play any musical instrument apart from singing. Once they are able to cross that bar and are writing and composing their original lyrics and music, and also playing musical instruments, my reservation would no longer have any basis.
Can you give us an example of your success?
We spoke to Multichoice about this a couple of times in the past but they refused to bulge. We took them to court and at the end of the day the court fined them N6 billion. So if we talk to your organisation, we could say just pay a token. But if you refuse, we will then take you to court where the court will charge you appropriately for damages.
But how do you expect Multichoice to pay that huge sum? Are they negotiating with you now?
I don’t know how they are going to pay it. They have not started the negotiation. They have gone on appeal. But while they are on appeal, the Supreme Court gave a decision on a similar case to theirs. But then the multichoice matter is still in court and not yet concluded, so we can’t say what will come out of their appeal until judgment is given.
Are there other cases involving such huge amounts?
Yes, we do we have the one against Globe Broadcasting, the owners of Wazobia station, which is going for between 2 and 3 billion naira. We have other cases against Airtel and MTN.
With the fact that corporate organizations are owing musicians these much, what would you say about the welfare of the average musician?
Musicians have a right to live the good life and whatever lifestyle they want or desire. Some may want to live flamboyantly to make them unique or to make them look different. It is up to them. And because of the nature of their work, they will always want to look fine and presentable to the public. But the truth is that, what musicians are earning from their works is far below what they should be earning.
Are you saying that they are not rich to the standard you expect?
I am saying that most of them are poor. No matter what they think they have now, it is a far cry from what they ought to be having now because of the huge market we have here. Especially now that their music is taken across the globe.
Indirectly you are saying that it is these people that owe them that are preventing musicians from being as rich as they ought to be?
That is it. Like I said earlier, if you are expecting money from a hundred places and only five of those places pay you, it can’t make you feel good. And if all of them pay you, of course, you will be in great affluence.
In climes where things work well, a musician can project how much he is likely to earn in a year from his music sales, from PR, royalties and so on. He could even use his erstwhile payments as evidence for collecting loans or advances from banks.
But here I can’t see musicians getting such loans except perhaps the real big ones that can walk into a bank and say I want a N100m loan from you, go to my society, they can give you my earning capacity. So these are the scenarios.
Over there, musicians are treated like kings. Imagine, it is a Nigerian lawyer who will be telling a client not to pay for copyright. In developed countries, if a musician takes a case of copyright to a lawyer, he will be advised to go and pay or the lawyer could help to negotiate and reduce the payment.
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