Minister of Communications,
Barrister Adebayo Shittu has pledged that he would personally resolve the
burning copyright dispute between Nigeria’s telecommunication companies and the
music industry represented by Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON).
The Minister made the pledge in his
Abuja office on Thursday, November 24, 2016 whilst speaking with a delegation
of COSON led by the Chairman, Chief Tony Okoroji.
Barrister Shittu said that Nigeria
can no longer tolerate a situation where some people are milking the cow while
the owners are left high and dry.
He also said that the unfair
exploitation of the Intellectual Property of Nigeria’s creative talents is
nothing short of robbery.
Addressing the minister, Chief
Okoroji said that the Nigerian economy cannot make much progress if we do not
understand that the nature of the world economy has changed and that our
country must pay the right attention to the respect for intellectual property.
He said that when the
telecommunications companies operating in Nigeria were licensed, no one could
have predicted that they would so quickly become important distributors of
content and intellectual property.
According to him, these companies
which were initially licensed to carry ‘voice’ have evolved to become the major
distributors of music and movies in a completely unregulated atmosphere.
He said that serious issues of
Intellectual Property abuse have arisen from this development resulting in
several ongoing court cases. Predicting that if these issues were not quickly
resolved, many more cases will end up in the courts making the environment for
the operations of the telecom companies turbulent. The minister assured the
delegation that the government will treat the matter with utmost dispatch.
On the delegation to the Minister
were juju maestro Sir Shina Peters, rub-a-dub master Ras Kimono, gospel star
Kenny Saint Best and queen of love, Azeezat Allen. Also on the delegation were
COSON General Manager, Mr. Chinedu Chukwuji and COSON Public Affairs
Consultant, Mrs. Lucy Ajayi.
Pix caption: Minister of
Communication, Barrister Adebayo Shittu, surrounded by COSON delegates;
Chairman, Chief Tony Okoroji (Immediate left) Ras Kimono, (2nd from left),
COSON Director, Mrs. Azeezat Allen, (3rd left) and COSON Public Affairs
Consultant (4th from left), Afro juju crooner, Sir Shina Peters (Immediate
right), Gospel singer, Kenny Saint Best and COSON General Manager, Mr. Chinedu
Chukwuji, (far right)
No comments:
Post a Comment