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From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
The Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) has engaged in a tripartite collaboration between the Nigerian Disc Jockeys popularly known as Deejays and the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria(MCSN) to curb piracy in the music industry and enhance the living standard of creative artists.
Meanwhile, the Director General of the NCC, Dr. Peter Asein has disclosed plans by the Commission to fashion a legal framework that will strengthen the business of Deejays and eradicate quacks from the industry.
The director general disclosed this in Abuja after a consultative meeting with the Deejays Association of Nigeria(DJAN) and the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria Limited(MCSN).
The meeting according to Asein, is to find a common ground that to ensure that the interest of rights owners are adquately protected in line with the Federal government’s policy of guaranteeing adequate retuns on investment and growing the creative sector.
Speaking exclusively to Daily Sun, the NCC boss said henceforth, measures would be put in place to ensuring that only the Deejays on the database of DJAN would be allowed to operate in the country.
This, he disclosed, was to weed out quacks masquerading as Deejays and exploiting both their patrons and the industry.
“What we are saying is that we want to ensure that only members will be allowed and permitted to do business as Djs in Nigeria. We will give a time frame within which we are going to shut the door and anyone who is not registered and does not have any form of accreditation will not be allowed to practice.
” We will presume that those without necessary registration and accreditation are out to exploit the business of music and is out to abuse the right of authors.
“We are going to come out strong on this and we advice the DJs to live up to register with their association and ensure that they are captured in the database that DJAN will be making available to the commission. With that, we will know who should be allowed to practice and those that would be stopped.
” The Commission is going to come out with appropriate legal framework to back that policy to strengthen the business of DJs if music must go far and also to strengthen the administration which is important if musicians are to get some recompense for the use of their music anywhere in the world.”
“So henceforth, it would not be music as usual. We want to separate the DJs who are really Djs from the quacks.”
Speaking on the collaborative efforts, Asein noted that the Djs are very important drivers of the music industry who cannot be undermined.
He disclosed that bothsides have agreed to that reality and there is a win-win position for all the parties.
“We have this consultative meeting and there is a win-win situation. Both sides have agreed to continue this discussion in a very positive and constructive manner with a view to arriving at that destination where MCSN will be able to make collection from the use of music and Djs will be able to do their business in a way that their members will be adequately compensated, ” Asein disclosed.
Confirming this position, the National President of DJAN, Tade Adeyemi (aka DJ Kool), expressed confidence that the collaboration will yield the expected results in such a way that would be beneficial to all parties.
“It is a good process in the area of royalty collection and it will help sensitize the DJs industry as there are lots of quack Djs who swindle their customers. With this collaboration, we will be able to streamline and weed out the bad ones among us.
” In a few weeks time, there will be the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) and once that is done, things will begin to take positive shape, ” Adeyemi stated.
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer(COE) of the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria Limited (MCSN), Mr. Mayo Ayilaran, noted that musicians stand to benefit from the collaboration.
“By this collaboration, we are able to understand ourselves to the fact that each of us is within the ecosystem in the creative sector is important.
” We believe that musicians will benefit from it. Previously, musicians cry of being driven out of job by the activities of Djs. But we now realized that everyone needs some kind of protection. So, within our own capacity, we will be able to do the needful to realize the objective of this collaboration. Its a win-win situation for all,” Ayilaran stated.
MCSN is an incorporated collective association of authors, composers, arrangers and publishers of music.
It is saddled with the responsibility of collecting royalties from users of music and creating a clear road-map for the creation of wealth and prosperity for Nigerian musicians and the creative industry at large.
