The
Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) and the Independent Broadcasters’
Association of Nigeria (IBAN) banned the airplay of some selected Nigerian
musicians over payment of royalties as demanded by the Copyright Society of
Nigeria, COSON.
Some of the artistes affected by the ban include Tuface Idibia, D’banj, and Wizkid.
The PMAN, in
a statement by its interim president, Kevin Lucciano, asked all parties
involved to dialogue and resolve the controversy.
The
association also called for the lifting of the ban describing it as unfair,
demeaning and discouraging.
“The ban on
airplay of these Nigerian artistes and their music on various Nigerian media
platforms is from our standpoint very unfair, demeaning and discouraging.
“We all know
without a doubt that these same artistes who have persevered and assisted us to
build, today what is known as the Nigerian music industry, Africa’s biggest
entertainment export to the world are the same people that are now being
victimized,” the association said.
“With this
action, the association foresees a situation where this ban will, rather than
encourage well meaning members of the society, with musical talent to hone
their craft and join the success story of the entertainment industry, reverse
will be the case.
“We also
foresee a situation where the bulk of the material that will be circulated on
Nigerian airwaves will be foreign materials, celebrating alien artistes instead
of embracing, home grown talent and our cultural heritage”.
In his
reaction, entertainment lawyer, Demilade Olaosun, said the ban is as a result
of what BON termed “COSON’s attitude of antagonism and harassment under the
leadership of Tony Okoroji (COSON Chairman)”.
He explained
that COSON has insisted that it is very well within its rights as a collecting
society, to which very many Nigerian artistes have assigned copyrights in their
works, to seek out royalties from entities exploiting them and make returns on
such royalties received.
He said that
the promotional activities of some artistes wherein they pay some radio
stations to facilitate a heavy rotation of their music on air may have led some
of these stations to have the erroneous perception that they are in fact doing
the industry a favour by playing these works and this should therefore exempt
them from paying royalties.
The lawyer
said that the payment by these artistes to secure airplay is entirely different
from COSON’s brief to secure royalty payments on the works being exploited; as
it is a statutory requirement that an author of a work must obtain some benefit
from the exploitation of the works by a third party.
Demilade
further said although BON/IBAN have the right to control the content they air,
they must with the terms of their broadcasting license which mandates a minimum
of 60 per cent local broadcast content for open television and 80 per cent
local broadcast content for radio; while cable/satellite retransmission stations
are mandated to reflect a minimum of 20 per cent local content in their
programming. He believes that indigenous music constitute a large part of what
makes up the local content and it must be accorded the value it deserves.
“If BON is
to insist on its position, it goes without saying that all songs employed as
jingles for adverts (which is where the large part of their revenue come from)
must also be stopped on these media platforms,” he said.
He concluded by calling on the
National Broadcasting Commission to, in furtherance of its statutory duties,
regulate and control the broadcast industry, uphold the principles of equity
and fairness in broadcasting, and promoting Nigerian indigenous culture.
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