Entertainment & SocietyNigerian Music Industry In Limbo As COSON, MCSN Battle Over CMO Rights

Nigerian Music Industry In Limbo As COSON, MCSN Battle Over CMO Rights

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BEVERLY HILLS, January 25, (THEWILL) – The battle between Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) and Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria (MCSN) over control of the Collective Management Organisation, CMO, is still raging.

CMO, is the organization that collects royalties on behalf of artists.

Both organizations have continued to lay claim to the right to collect royalties.

With COSON parading itself as the rightful organisation for the job, MCSN was forced to put out a statement insisting that they are the rightful organization empowered by the Nigerian Copyright Commission to be the sole CMO for the Nigerian Music Industry.

MCSN also said that the NCC, granted it an approval for the renewal of its license in December of 2020, to continue to operate as a CMO in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Cap C.28 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004 and the Copyright (Collective Management Organisation) Regulations 2007.

MCSN alleges that COSON’s approval to operate as a CMO has been suspended since 2018 and so they have no legal standing to operate in the capacity of a CMO.

But in a counter move, COSON also released a statement, warning the general public not to seek any license for the use of any musical works or sound recordings in the repertoire of COSON from the MCSN, adding that the announcement of the ‘renewal of approval’ by MCSN by the NCC is of little significance.

According to COSON, despite its maneuverings, MCSN is still not legally licensed to be a CMO or represent COSON or any of the thousands of members of COSON lawfully licensed to use of any of the millions of musical works and sound recordings in the repertoire of COSON, as none of the works, whether local or international, which are intellectual property belonging to individuals, has been assigned to MCSN.

COSON maintains that not even the Nigerian Copyright Commission has the power under law to authorize MCSN or anyone else to license the musical works and sound recordings lawfully assigned to COSON or placed in the COSON repertoire by means of any reciprocal representation agreement.

It does appear that the Nigerian Music Industry may be in a limbo as both COSON and MCSN have artists registered with them separately. Representation by a CMO requires that the artist is registered with a CMO, thus granting the CMO powers to act on his behalf. They operate using a fee schedule, which allows users to make use of the entire contents represented by the CMO for a prescribed period.

However, the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) has been empowered by the Nigerian Copyright Act (NCA) of 2004 to grant licenses to CMOs to operate and act on behalf of copyright owners. By current developments, only MCSN has the blessing of NCC to act as Nigerian sole CMO but the fault line in the development and the contention of COSON is that MCSN cannot represent artistes registered with them.

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