Why No Music day is important -Justin Ige

No Music Day, which was propounded in Nigeria by the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) was observed by Metro FM in the morning of Tuesday, September 1st, 2015. Justin Ige, of Creative Legal, a media and entertainment law outfit and consultant to COSON, was hosted. Also present was Rex, an artist. The ensuing interview, published on this page, was syndicated by entertainment personality, Ibrahim Babatunde Ibrahim, so that it can be understood why No Music Day should be observed and its benefits for the media and entertainment industry in general. What is copyright in itself? Copyright can be referred to as a basket of rights. Basically, it’s the authorization to be able to do certain things such as broadcast, copy, duplicate, perform publicly, as well as its adaptations. These are some of the parts of the acts which copyright controls technically. What is the idea behind No Music Day? The idea behind the No Music Day is this. In most cases, when you have something in abundance, sometimes you don’t take a while or a step back to appreciate its value. But if you are deprived of that very thing just for a little while, you begin to realize how much it is. The No Music Day is just a device to make people reflect on the value of music. Imagine a whole day without any form of music in your house, car, radio, television, all your advert jingles without music, your film without music, and so on. The theme for this year’s No Music Day is ‘Music, the Untapped Alternative to Crude Oil.’ What are the prospects and possibilities of music in monetary terms? The reality is that money is being made a whole lot. Less money is also being made and the other reality is that a lot of the little money is being made by the wrong people. When you say the wrong people, are you referring to the pirates? Yes the pirates! And there are different categories of pirates, not just physical pirates which most people generally refer to as the Alaba boys but we also have digital pirates, people who release music online without authorization. Some are even free but they are depriving people of their income by the bit. Sometimes back, we got reports that some artists actually go to the pirates to get them to make duplicate copies in order to sell their music as they were finding it difficult to break through demands of the industry? I understand and I’m aware of that. They were using the method of compilation albums, which initially the Alaba marketers of that time pay to get done. Then later the artists started paying to have their works on these mixes. It’s wrong to do that, but the Alaba boys are business men, and they want to make money. It is wrong for who to do that? (Ige): It is wrong for artists to do that. But if you (artist) decide to be like Esau of the holy books who sold off his birthright for a plate of porridge, fine! But that’s shortchanging your destiny as a talented artist and not having foresight. Most artists want the hot plate of porridge but never look at the future ahead. Though I’m not sure most artists still do that. (Rex): They still do. It’s an industry. In fact, it’s a sub-industry on its own. A while back, a guy hit me up on Facebook saying he is into promotions and stuff and can help get my music into Alaba. I was like, fine, I can send you my music to put it out for free. But he said I have to pay for that service and I told him point blank that that’s the twisted side of his business and the guy challenged me back saying this is Nigeria and further asked if the radio stations that play my songs pay me royalties and the truth here is we are actually not getting paid. (Ige): You see some radio stations are paying and some artists are getting their royalties. Two years ago, about N100million was distributed to artists and some artistes that I know about got as much as N3million for that year. But as an artist, you have to qualify and you need to practically do certain things to get that much. If you are Mr. A as a musician or artiste, are you getting paid? Or rather what are you doing to ensure you get paid? The structure is there, the platform is there. So to just generally say“we are not getting paid” or “we are not seeing the money” is so not true. Let’s break it down here. What exactly should an artist do to get their money especially if their song is being played on air? The question we must ask is what category of artist qualifies? There are different categories of artists and most artists don’t really know who they are. Are you a performer, or a song writer, singer, a record label executive, your own publisher, producer and so on? These are all kinds of categories that can affect how much an artist earns as royalties. For example, you go to COSON, the organization responsible for collecting and distributing royalties and you register your work as an artist. Meanwhile, you are also the one publishing your work. 50% of royalties is meant to go to the artist and the other 50% will be unaccounted for. It remains in there as unclaimed in the account waiting for someone to come claim it. So who does the awareness of these information? Is it the artiste’s manager, the record label company or the lawyer like yourself? Lawyers are very private people. Some of us involve ourselves in some social crusades like this but it is not the responsibility of lawyers in any way. If you have a business, make efforts to understand the laws guiding the business and how the industry operates as well as the structures within that industry. So I think the investor or the artiste or that entertainment entrepreneur has the responsibility to be educated about his business. Yes there is a COSON, there is a Copyright Commission that have some more responsibility to disseminate information but I feel that the primary responsibility lies with the people who have invested their intellectual property and resources in making this music that we all love. In as much as artists collect royalties, do artists pay taxes? We will have to ask the tax authorities about that. How then do you account for royalties? Well I am Justin Ige from Creative Legal. We are legal consultants to COSON and not employees of COSON who are involved in the collection of royalties and the actual copyright administration of royalties to artistes. But the truth is all broadcast stations do have that responsibility to pay royalties and also provide a log. So if you as a radio station pay your royalties to COSON and don’t provide a log, you have only fulfilled half of your obligation and I want to believe Metro FM does both. Sure we comply. Let’s look at the concept of music as an alternative to crude oil which ties in with the theme for this year’s No Music Day. Tell us more about this. The intellectual property business as it relates to music is very huge and has a lot of potentials; we can go to some statistics. In Nashville USA that’s just one city, the music industry helps to create and sustain more than 56,000 jobs. That’s for country music. Yes it is, but that’s the industry there, and their industry shows that they have about 10 billion USD annual economic impact for music only and that’s about N4trillion. Imagine Lagos generating or allowing music to contribute about that for Lagos State. Do you know that Lagos generated N246 billion for 2014? Now that’s a lot of money for just one year, isn’t it? Imagine N4 trillion in addition being introduced into Lagos’ economy from music alone and then imagine what Lagos State will be making?