May 01, (THEWILL) – Gospel artiste, Tope Alabi and United States-based boss of NPC records, Alhaji Tajudeen Bioku, have been at war over copyright infringement for some years now. The dispute has even degenerated to a court case, but their lawyers are making frantic efforts to settle it out of court. It all started after the gospel artiste signed a deal with NPC Records Audio Works in 2006 to compose and produce a music album in two languages, English and Yoruba. The singer produced the Yoruba version Angeli Mi, which was released in 2007. Some of the songs in the album became instant hits. When Alabi failed to produce the English version, Bioku reported him to the Special Fraud Unit in Ikoyi, Lagos State and the Nigeria Copyright Commission (NCC). Alabi thereafter proceeded to give some telecommunication giants the right to use three of her songs, Jesu Olurapada, Angeli Mi, and E gbe ga from the album as ringtones without Bioku’s consent, who is the sole copyright owner of the album. Bioku got to know about the illicit transaction in 2020 and sued the singer and the telecommunication companies at the Lagos High Court, Lagos Island, specifically requesting the sum of N1.5 billion from the telco companies.
Alabi’s lawyer has been trying to get the two parties to settle out of court. It was gathered that if he succeeds, the singer would pay the record label boss several millions of naira.
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