Following the receipt of over one billion Naira for musical works and sound recordings from the NCC, the Musical Copyright Society Nigeria Ltd/Gte (MCSN) is facing a seeming revolt from the Record Labels Proprietors Initiative (RELPI).
The copyright levy has been one of the legal provisions of Copyright Laws in Nigeria since 1988 but never implemented until President Bola Tinubu came into power.
According to MCSN, the eventual disbursement of the fund will certainly reach the grassroots and every Nigerian creator so as to begin to actually lift poor musicians out of deep poverty.
Until the release of the first tranche of the copyright levy, which has seen the RELPI campaigning that it represents sound recording owners, the initiative has never for once spoken or collected rights for Nigerian creators.
MCSN also acknowledged the grumbles of the RELPI saying, “We are not unaware of the grumblings of certain interests fronting some Nigerian entities to continue with the unprofitable actions of more than 30 years to hold down the progress of the Nigerian music industry. They have been operating under various guises confusing the copyright system, thus preventing it from delivering the desired results to our creatives, particularly in the music industry.”
Currently RELPI is claiming to represent some of the biggest music labels in Nigeria as well as their artists in collecting their copyright levies.
Reacting to RELPI grumbles, MCSN said, “For a start, sound recordings are a shared interest between record producers and performers (performing musicians) whose performances were recorded. The rights in sound recordings are normally shared between the producers and performers, in certain territories at the ratio of 50% a-piece.”
Continuing, MCSN in a statement further said, “In Nigeria, most performers (performing musicians) whose performances were recorded in albums are direct members and assignors of MCSN, vis-à-vis many independent record producers and label owners. These are the real owners of sound recordings in Nigeria.
“The Performing Employers’ Association of Nigeria (PMAN), which is the only legally recognised union/association of performing and employers of musicians (including recording producers and labels) has a subsisting agreement with MCSN with which MCSN represents the copyright interests of all performers and producers in Nigeria.”
MCSN concluded its submission saying, “In line with international norm and best practices, MCSN will administer the rights of ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, PRS, SACEM, SAMRO, etc in Nigeria and remit the appropriate royalties to them after deducting the appropriate taxes for the Nigerian government. This is one key area that the people in RELPI are apparently not considering. No Nigerian, not even RELPI can go to the USA, UK, Kenya or South Africa to dictate to the governments of those countries on how they should run their copyright system. Nigeria will not give room to this.”
