Mayowa Ayilaran: New copyright act has come to address flaws in old law

Mr. Mayowa Ayilaran is the Chief Executive Officer of the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria Ltd/Gte. He speaks on the new copyright regime with GREGORY AUSTIN NWAKUNOR.

What has been the journey of MCSN so far?
It has been tough, but as our people used to say, ‘when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.’ Things have been challenging not just for us, but you can see all over the country and all over the word, so, you can see that we cannot be excoriated from these challenges around the world. We give glory to God that we have been able to weather the storm as much as we can.

It is a good one. It has been challenging like I said, because for an organisation to cover a whole country. It is a yeoman task. Like I always said, Rome was not built in a day. And if you want to go one thousand miles, you have to take the very first step. And we have taken our own first step by what we have done so far within the Lagos area and we have some agencies in some regions in the country we are also operating. For example, we have an agency in Edo State representing Edo and Delta. What we are now doing is to set up full offices across the country, branches, so to say, instead of agencies. And we have started well with Abuja, where we have a full fledge office. We are also doing that in Ibadan for Southwest region. We also have one in Kaduna that will take charge of North Central and our agency in Kano will still continue to work under the Kaduna office. These are the gradual moves that we are making and we are happy that majority of the regions are having a feel of what we are doing, because the copyright culture is catching up all over the country. Unlike before, when you talk of copyright, it is only limited to Lagos area and maybe big corporations. But now, when you talk of copyright, it has simmered down to even the small users. Mention copyright to a one star hotel, apart from the five star hotels that are well versed in copyright matters, they will challenge you on it. But now, it doesn’t happen anymore.
Apart from what we have done physically, that is physical expansion, digitally too; we have covered the whole country, except for those who are not digitally versed that will say they do not know about copyright in Nigeria or what MCSN is doing and most of our members relate with us on digital platform. We have social media handles and those who have questions ask questions. Those are the kind of things we are doing. Without technology we cannot effectively do the job. We have acquired a lot of modern technology to the job, and they are paying off gradually. With this technology we have been able to confront people with evidence of what they have been doing illegally. So, they now know that there is hiding place anymore. What remain is for them to comply and pay the fees that will in turn go back to composers, authors and the musicians at large.

What’s the update on the Nigerian Copyright Act and how does it affect your operation?
The new copyright Act has come to address some of the flaws in the old law. I will not say that this law is perfect, because there are still some areas that deal with analogue issues… you know when reference is made to copies, as if we are talking of just printed work. 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: Even as a lounge owner, bar or hotel. 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 will this impact your members?
Now they should be expecting more money. We have been paying them over the years; they can be assured that more money would 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.