Mayowa Ayilaran: With New Copyright Act, You Can’t Use Work of Art Without Permission

Chief Executive Officer of the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria Ltd/Gte, Mr. Mayowa Ayilaran, who is embroiled in a N29 billion legal tussle with Multichoice speaks with  Ferdinand Ekechukwu on the gains of the new copyright laws to owners of works of art. Excerpts:

What’s the update on the Nigerian Copyright Act and how does it affect your operation?

What I can say about the new copyright act is that it has expanded our scope. It is more definitive in terms of people’s obligation when they use copyrighted works. With this act, the excuse that you don’t know who to go to can no longer hold waters. So, the act has come clearly to criminalise the use of copyrighted works without permission apart from us being able to take you to court like we are doing to Multichoice. If we want to activate the criminal aspect of it, we can do it. Some people/organisations are using music without a licence to use it.  So, we can activate criminal actions against them. So that’s one good aspect of the copyright act. Again, the act has addressed to a certain extent, the issue of online and digital exploitation. Apart from the civil liabilities, if I find myself online on anybody’s platform, I can complain. The next thing that will happen is to take it down.

So, how can users of music avoid the trouble of Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria (MCSN)?

Well, the act has taught you to get the licence from the owner of musical work before you use them. That’s a way of avoiding the trouble of MCSN. So if you know that you are going into a venture where you may use musical work or you want to hang a work of art, like a painting on the wall, then the first step to take is to find out what to do. Do I need a licence? A phone call to the MCSN office or the NCC in Abuja or Lagos will solve the problem for you. That will help you to avoid any problems.

How does this affect your members in terms of what comes to them?

Now they should be expecting more money. We have been paying them over the years; they can be assured that more money will come their way. They will be happier and, you know, they have less stress to worry about. They can boldly approach us to take some cases up on their behalf.

You recently sued Multichoice for N29 billion. What was the issue this time?

Yes, the Multichoice people do not want to pay for what they have consumed. They preferred conflict to discussion with us. They continue to play games, shifting grounds, throwing up different kinds of issues not based on the law, and sometimes trying to play the people in the industry against one another. When you succeed in dividing the camp of your enemy, you can defeat them. They have been using that kind of tactics in the copyright area and we are saying, no, we will not take it anymore. Because you cannot be operating in Nigeria and be giving the creators the musicians, and the filmmakers peanuts as rewards for their efforts as if you can survive without their creative materials. But it has been their attitude and the MCSN is saying no.

But instead of going to court, why didn’t you invite them for discussion?

Yes, we could have, if you understood the way of MCSN, you will see our organisation as the most patient organisation in the country you can think of. For example, somebody has not been paying us a dime since 2021. They were supposed to have said ‘okay, we are trying to agree on how we can pay, so please hold this for your members’. You are not doing that and every time we reached out to them, saying let’s resolve this thing, they won’t respond.  You don’t do this in South Africa, where they started from. So we have been on this with Multichoice since 2021, after the initial case, we won against them, and after settling that case, we said let’s continue with these payments without us dragging each other, but they refused. So, after a series of meetings, we now saw that they were wearing us out and wasting our time.  They contacted somebody in the U.S. and the person said, they had not given their right to anybody in Nigeria. Can anyone do that in the US when the Nigerian government has appointed an agent to do that for his country? Because this issue we are talking about is a federal government issue.

Can you give an update on the activities of the MCSN in the past year?

It’s been challenging but that is what makes the world go around. If we live in a world free of challenge, everything will be boring and we will not be creative. So looking back we can say we have done well by the grace of God. We have been able to cover the ground, we are effectively expanding. 

In the past, the issue of copyright had been seen as a Lagos affair because most of the activities had been restricted to Lagos. But by God’s grace, we have spread to other parts of the country. We are spreading by setting up offices in some areas specifically in Abuja, Edo, and Delta states. We have agencies in Abia and representatives in Rivers State. In Kaduna, we have a vibrant agency with a plan to set up a full-blown office in Kano before the end of this year.