The long battle between Copyright Society Of Nigeria (COSON) and Music Copyright Society Of Nigeria (MCSN) as to who is legally responsible to act as a collective management organisation/collective society (CMO) or simply put collect royalties on behalf of artistes rages on.
Recently, MCSN issued a release which was made available to the media that they have been empowered by the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) to be the sole CMO for the Nigerian Music Industry (NMI).
In a bid in putting a tie to the subtle campaign in certain quarters and affirming the progressive direction and development of the collective administration of copyright in Nigeria, the NCC has granted to the Musical Copyright Society Of Nigeria Led/GLC (MCSN) the renewal of its approval license.
Its approval or license to continue to operate as a Collective Management Organisation (CMO) in accordance with the provisions of the copyright Act, Cap c.28 Laws of the federation of Nigeria 2004 and the copyright (Collective Management Organisation) Regulations, 2007.
“The renewal of MCSN’s approval to continue to operate as CMO or collecting society for musical works and sound recordings was conveyed by a letter dated 22nd December, 2020 from the NCC”, the release reads in part.
The release also declares that COSON’s approval to operate as CMO has been suspended since 2018 and thus has no legal standing to operate in the capacity of a CMO. But in a counter move, COSON also released a statement of their own, warning the general public not to seek any license for the use of any musical works or sound recordings in the repertoire of COSON from MCSN.
The statement issued by COSON’s General Counsel, Ms Simi Wash-Pam reads in part:” the recently announced so called renewal of approval of MCSN by the NCC led by Mr John Asein is of little significance. This is so because the maneuvering still cannot permit MCSN to legally license musical works or sound recordings not owned by it or which have not been placed in its repertoire by lawful proprietary assignments or by means of any reciprocal representative agreements lawfully entered.
Ms Wash-Pam also emphasised that under no circumstances is MCSN or any of its agents legally authorised to represent COSON or any of the thousands of members COSON or lawfully license the use of any of the millions of musical works and sound recordings in the repertoire of COSON as non of the works whether here or international are intellectual property belonging to individual has been assigned to MCSN.
Wash-pam was equally emphatic that not even the Nigerian copyright commission has the power under any law known in Nigeria to authorise MCSNvor anyone else to license the musical works and sound recordings lawfully assigned to COSON or placed in the COSON repertoire by means of any reciprocal representation agreement.
From the foregoing, it does appear the Nigerian music industry maybe in a limbo as both COSON and NCSN have artistes registered with them separately. Representation by the CMO requires that artiste is registered with a CMO, thus granting the CMO powers to act on its behalf they operate using a fee schedule, for instance blanket licenses which allows user to make use of the entire contents represented by the CMO for a prescribed period.
However, the NCC has been empowered by Nigerian copyright Act (NCA) 2004 to grant licenses to CMO to operate and act on behalf of copyright owners. By the current development, only MCSN has the blessing of NCC to act as Nigerian sole CMO but the bottom line in the development and the contention of COSON is that MCSN cannot represent artistes registered with them.