We recently had a chat with Intellectual Property
expert and activist, Mr. Chinedu Chukwuji; General Manager, Copyright Society
of Nigeria (COSON) on the visit of Ms. Tarja Koskinen – Olsson to the
organisation. In this interview, the GM also shed more light on COSON’s
activities, why COSON goes to court, as well as what to expect from this year’s
Annual General Meeting (AGM) slated for December.
Q: Hello Mr. Chinedu Chukwuji, how are you?
A: I am doing great, thank you.
Q: What brings world renowned Copyright expert Ms.
Tarja Koskinen – Olsson to COSON? Considering the fact that you run a thriving
collective management organisation which definitely implies your team already
understands the copyright subject.
A: At COSON we’ve always believed in continuous
improvement and that is one of the planks upon which our vision and drive has
been put on, and as part of that initiative it is good to train, and retrain
your work force and for me the satisfaction of your employees, in terms of
giving them the appropriate training, especially in the kind of environment
that we find ourselves where the knowledge level is still at its lowest. It
becomes incumbent on us to provide training opportunities to enhancing their
capacity in terms of technical’s and I think that is one of the reasons we have
brought in Tarja, who for us has seen it all with respect to collective
management, she has previously headed a collective management organisation in
her country, she has ran a music cmo, audiovisual cmo, she has several years of
experience and I’ve worked closely with Ms Tarja in the last 5 years and I know
she has got substance in terms of the right elements COSON staffs will need to
help them do their jobs better. My belief is that a well trained work force is
a huge advantage to the entire system. For us, it is part of our drive to train
and re-train our staffs most especially in this area where knowledge keeps
developing, information keeps changing and we want to be at the top of things
and not caught napping. For us, if at the end of the day we can be the cutting edge
of happenings in intellectual property, then we’ve done much. Then at the same
time, if we can reach our users in the language that they best understand and
at the end of the day are able to improve our collection and pay more royalties
to the right owners, and then we can say yes, we are doing the right thing.
Q: A while back Rob Hooijer, a copyright specialist
was in the country and at COSON to train the workforce and now Ms. Tarja, COSON
surely has invested heavily in ensuring in-depth understanding of Intellectual
Property and Copyright by staffs, but I have to ask, in COSON’s 6 years of
existence, how do you rate the level of public acceptance towards avoiding
Copyright Infringement?
A: Let me start by saying you did mention that Rob was
here about 2 months ago and you look at what the 2 personalities bring, though
similar, they bring 2 different things based on the experienced gained from
where they are coming from. Rob has headed SAMRO for a number of years and has
also being at the helms of CISAC at one point in time, for us bringing them
says alot about COSON in terms of workforce improvement. Now going back to the
perception and acceptance of what COSON has come to represent, it hasn’t always
been this easy. At the beginning, alot of people said to us it could never
happen in Nigeria, that people will not pay for usage of music in their
commercial or public setting and then yes it is true that for a long time music
had been used for free but we are consistent with our mandate and what we
decided to do is to keep pushing. While it is not yet Eldorado, while we
haven’t arrived at our promised land, we can say to you that we are far better
off than where we were 6 years ago. The level of perception in terms of respect
for intellectual property is gradually changing and also understanding that the
richest people on earth today are not owners of oil wells, steel mills. The age
of brick and mortal generation is fast passing, weare now in the information
age and with information you talk about knowledge and that’s where we are right
now. We need to seen to keep educating our different stakeholders group about
the need to respect intellectual property. You can’t build an information or
knowledge technology without building it on the fulcrum of respect of
intellectual property. If we do not respect intellectual property, then we as
well kiss our knowledge and information economy goodbye. That is why more
attention must be paid to the respect of copyright and related rights as it
concerns what we do at COSON. We are far better than where are coming from but
they are still alot of people who think we are joking, but I want to say we
would keep educating and informing our users and where we need to make use of
the instruments of the law, we would do that very well.
Q: Talking about using the instrument of the law,
COSON is known to have sued some of the biggest organisations in Nigeria, what
gives COSON the impetus, considering that these are organisation giants that
many will be scared to sue?
A: I would say that first and foremost, COSON is
approved by the law and Nigeria is a law abiding country, so when people say
laws don’t work here, it is perhaps they have not tested the law. Secondly, we
are not a fly –by – night organisation; we are approved by the Federal Government.
Thirdly, we’ve been given a job to do both by the government and owners of the
works we represent, so it’s common to say that if we’ve done our best to get
people to fulfil their obligations by using moral suasion and that is not
working, as a responsible organisation, what do you do? You approach the 3rd
party to intervene in the matter and when COSON goes to court, COSON is simply
asking the court to intervene in the matter and that is what civil societies
do, rather than going on the streets with cutlasses and causing a riot. We have
approached the court and we believe that is a descent and most honourable thing
to do. We go to court armed with the necessary facts and figures that we
represent XYZ. The law has not said you can use another man’s property and go
scot free, so we go to court with concrete evidence to show that we have these
rights within our cover and you cannot use these rights without the appropriate
license. COSON is not afraid to approach the court when it has to do with the
issues we are mandated to deal with, whatever organisation you represent, it is
to your best interest if you are using music for commercial or public purposes
that you get licensed by COSON to avoid any form of litigation because at the
end of the day, it will cost you more to deal with an issue that is already in
court. We are not crazy people or wackos like some people have made the public
to believe, we are very reasonable people, we do not just go to court without
first exhausting other reasonable options, it is when all other alternatives
fail that we proceed to the courts to interpret the law.
Q: Finally, COSON is known to always spring up
surprises at the tail end of the year, the AGM is coming up also. What are we
to expect from COSON before the year ends?
A: Even though we are called a collective society, our job is beyond just collection of royalties. One of the critical assignments the government and our members have given to us is to make sure we collect and distribute. Like it is in our tradition, for the last 5 years, we have been consistent with our pledge that we will keep distributing royalties without fail, come December 2016 COSON will distribute royalties to its member, and we hope and believe that it will be more than we have distributed in the previous years and we hope to put smiles on the faces of the right holders come December. Right now we do not know what amount we are distributing but we do believe it will surpass what we have put out there in the last 5 years.
Q: Thank you so much Mr Chinedu Chukwuji for your time
A: Thank you. You are most welcome.
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