'ENTRETAINERSHIP SESSIONS'

Disclaimer: The aim of this article is information and enlightenment; please consult a solicitor for individual professional advice.

COPYRIGHT PROTECTION FOR YOUR MUSIC

Your music is your property, in the same way that your car or your phone is your property. This means that you may enjoy certain benefits from your music like you would enjoy from any other property of yours. The protection your music enjoys is known as copyright protection.

Copyright protection gives you, as the creator of a musical work or sound recording, a diverse set of exclusive rights over your work for a limited period of time.  These means that you can control how your music is used and exploited and you can also receive payment.

In Nigeria, there are no statutory requirements for your music to be registered before it can enjoy copyright protection. Once the work is original and it is created and fixed on a tangible medium or material from which it can be perceived (for instance, on a CD), copyright protection automatically becomes available, whether the work is published or sold or not.

However, even though your music enjoys protection without any further formalities, it is important to sound a note of warning. While a work is ‘protected’, certain situations or factors may arise which could prevent it from enjoying that protection in reality. For instance, some difficulties may arise if you want to enforce your rights in case of a dispute of ownership of copyright.  Let’s illustrate with an example.

You have written a song from your heart and recorded it on a CD. Automatically, it enjoys copyright protection. You keep the CD. A little while later, you hear a song on the radio that sounds exactly like your own, down to the beats and the lyrics. And if another person claims that you ‘stole’ the song from them, what do you do in that situation? Is your work protected by copyright? Yes it is. Has your work actually enjoyed copyright protection? That is another matter entirely. Of what use is a ‘protection’ that you cannot enjoy? How do you even prove that the song is yours, or that you came up with it first?

The Nigerian Copyright Commission has created a voluntary registration process called the Copyright Notification Scheme. This scheme allows you to register your work with the Commission and your work forms part of their data bank. This process can help you enjoy the protection that is already intrinsic in your work. It ascertains the time of the creation of the work, so that you may find it easier to prove not only ownership but also priority of creation.

Thus, while registration is not compulsory for an eligible work to enjoy protection, registration under the Copyright Notification Scheme is advisable.

TINUKEMI ALABI

PRINCIPAL SOLICITOR, ANCILLA ASSOCIATES

Tinukemi Alabi is the Principal Solicitor at Ancilla Associates, a legal services firm with expertise in business law, entertainment law, and intellectual property law. Her blog, Tinukemi’s Savvy (http://tinukemi.blogspot.com) is a legal resource centre for entertainment practitioners in Nigeria. You can send her a mail: tinukemi@ancillang.com or tinukemi@gmail.com