Musicians’ Advancement in Focus at PMAN, NCC, and MCSN Roundtable
Following the successful three-day music festival, Vis-à-Vis, organised by the Spanish Embassy, the Performing Musicians Employers Association of Nigeria (PMAN), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), and Musical Copyright Society Of Nigeria (MCSN) collaborated to hold a roundtable for the advancement of the local music industry. The roundtable was held at The Nigerian Music House – PMAN’s corporate headquarters in Lagos recently.
Vis-à-Vis, with a presence in over a dozen African countries, is aimed at fostering healthy cultural exchange between Nigeria and Spain for increased revenue generation and artistes’ remuneration through the protection of copyrights, showcasing of local talents, and creating an enabling environment to break onto the international scene.
With the roundtable themed ‘Maximising the International Dimension of Music as a Vehicle of Culture’, stakeholders discussed issues affecting the local music economy, highlighting the impact of the cultural exchange programme on economic growth, and routes to maximise monetisation of content.
“The programme, Vis-à-Vis, has been one that we are running through our public diplomacy institution, CASA Africa,” Spanish Ambassador to Nigeria, Juan Ignacio explained.
He continued: “We have opened up a platform where Nigerian musicians have uploaded their music. And out of the more than 150 entries we have, the jury has chosen 12 that have been playing live for the jury, and out of them, two will be invited to play in the Sin Sal Festival in Spain.”
The partnership, according to President, PMAN, Pretty Okafor, is a start to exporting and monetising talents, improving existing structures, and strengthening the copyrights systems in Nigeria.
The initiative comes on the heels of the newly signed copyrights bill housed in The Copyrights Act 2022, which provides effective administration, regulation, enforcement, and protection of copyright in the digital environment.
“Copyright is the oil that makes the creation, distribution, and exploitation of music to be frictionless, and if we must continue to produce music, we must have functional and efficient copyrights in place for sustainability,” Director-General, NCC, Dr John Asein said, alluding to the impact of the act.
Other discussants include CEO, MCSN, Mayo Ayilaran; Director, SGAE, Vincente Sanchis; Sin Sal Festival Representative, Julio Gomez; and representatives of NTDA and NCC.
They discussed the direct (sales and royalties) and indirect (tourism and adjacent industries) impact of music as a cultural vehicle on the economy, ways of ensuring remuneration across the entire value chain, problems bordering on enforcement of copyright laws, and the adoption of modern licensing practices.
On a whole, Okafor stated that only registered members of PMAN shall benefit from the collaboration, urging other musicians to come on board by registering.
