Indications emerged yesterday that the long silence on music royalty row involving Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON) and Independent Broadcasting Association of Nigeria (IBAN) was a mere truce, as COSON has requested these organisations to meet their obligations in line with an agreement signed during a recent reconciliation meeting.
It would be recalled that following what it described as arbitrary royalty charges by COSON, BON and IBAN had rallied its members to boycott music of COSON members on their broadcast stations. Subsequently, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) had set up a joint committee for tempers to cool, leading to a purported agreement last May.
In a statement released to the media yesterday, COSON is urging BON and IBAN to respect the royalty agreement.
“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,” said chairman of COSON, Chief Tony Okoroji.
Vexed by the development, Okoroji said his organisation may be forced to return to court if the situation persists. “COSON is 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 licence for the music used by anyone than to engage COSON in an expensive legal process.”
In 2013, COSON instituted several multi-million naira law suits against some of Nigeria’s biggest broadcast stations including AIT, Ray Power, STV, Rhythm FM, Beat FM, Classic FM, Naija FM, Smooth FM and Brila FM, with a threat to sue many more broadcast stations.
Many had though that the negotiation committee, midwife by NBC, would put an end to the faceoff, but it appears some government-owned stations are among the royalty defaulters. “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,” he said, urging 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.
Similarly, the COSON boss is also requesting the leaderships of the Hotel & Personal Services Employers Association of Nigeria (HOPESEA) and Hotel Owners Forum Abuja (HOFA) to direct each and every one of their members to immediately respect the agreement which they freely entered into with COSON.
