COSON DEMANDS ON NO MUSIC DAY

COSON DEMANDS ON NO MUSIC DAY

To create a new environment for the music industry to thrive in Nigeria, Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) made the following specific demands on “No Music Day”, September 1, 2016:

1.  President Buhari should order the Hon Minister of Finance and the Attorney-General of the Federation to ensure the full implementation of the Private Copy Levy scheme without any further delay.

2.  The Nigerian Communications Commission should make it very clear to all telecommunications companies operating in Nigeria that henceforth, there will be zero tolerance for the infringement of the Intellectual Property rights of Nigerian citizens whose works are deployed by these companies.

3.  The Minister of Information & Culture and the different state Governors should make it clear to all Federal Government and State owned broadcasting stations respectively, and other government institutions that there is no provision of the law that exempts them from the payment of royalties for the musical content broadcast or deployed by them.

4.  The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) should, as a matter of urgency, be ordered to take necessary steps to begin the take down of the several pirate websites bastardizing Nigerian Intellectual Property on the Internet.

5.  President Buhari should instruct the Ministers of Industry, Trade & Investment, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs to act swiftly to ensure that the brazen and massive piracy of Nigerian music, movies and literature across our continent are no longer tolerated.

6.  The Nigerian Copyright Commission should be empowered to pivot towards the effective implementation of anti-piracy measures in the digital environment.

7.  The National Assembly should act with despatch to ensure the promulgation into law of the new Copyright Bill which contains several provisions to properly deal with the infringement of copyright in the digital era.

8.  Necessary action should be taken to get the National Endowment Fund for the Arts up and running so that there are resources to take care of funding for creative projects and the welfare of creative people who have fallen into hard times.

No Music Day 2016 may have come and gone but the reverberations will be heard for a long-long time.