A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has ordered Nigerian rapper and music producer, Olamide, to pay a skit maker, Yinusa Sodiq Oriyomi, also known as Omopatakii, the sum of ₦10m in damages over copyright infringement.
Oriyomi, in 2020, had alleged Olamide stole the lines in ‘Won Ma’ from an Instagram skit titled ‘Won Ma Do’, the song he created and released on August 17, 2019. He demanded ₦50m in damages.
According to the comedian, his skit, which has the catchphrases: a woman cannot be satisfied “o le te obirin lorun”; and regardless of what you do for a woman, she will sleep around, “won ma do”, are his creative concepts.
Delivering the final judgment, Justice C.N. Aneke held that the Plaintiff had sufficiently shown that he was indeed the rightful owner of the copyright in the video skit originated and created and disseminated via the Instagram handle @omopatakii and that the Defendant had infringed on same by the release of his album 999 with the inclusion of the track titled “won ma” which bears the same expression and message conveyed by the Plaintiff in the aforementioned video skit.
Accordingly, the Court granted all the reliefs sought by the Plaintiff against the Defendant.
Olamide was also ordered to remove the track ‘Won ma’ from all music and online streaming platforms.
The court further directed that he pay the skit maker ₦10m as damages for infringement of his intellectual property right and also give an account of all the profit made on account of the infringement in two national newspapers and on his social media platforms.
