In my August 2010 article on this blog, I proposed that we turn our attention to an area more rewarding for the Nigerian music industry- a Copyright Collecting Society. Apparently, someone was listening.
There have been a lot of questions about COSON (Copyright Society of Nigeria) and how they operate. Therefore, the aim of this article is to give you a quick working knowledge of how a copyright society like COSON works (or should work). I tend to talk fast, so sit up.
Copyright gives the owner of a musical work or sound recording the exclusive right to exploit that work in a number of ways including reproduction, recording, publishing, public performance, adaptation, translation, communication to the public, etc. Accordingly, only the copyright owner can do any of these acts or authorise anyone to do any of the acts. Any one that exploits the work without permission from the owner may be guilty of infringement.
This means that any person or organisation that wants to use a song must seek permission for each time of use. These users include television and radio stations, expositions, restaurants, bars, hotels, night clubs, shopping centres, exhibitions, offices, websites, etc. However, it would be too cumbersome for all users to seek permission every time they need to play the songs of every artiste. This is where the usefulness and practicality of a copyright collecting society like COSON comes in.
Put simply, a collecting society is an association that has the authority to license works and collect royalties on behalf of copyright owners for an agreed fee. Collecting societies exist because it is impractical to enforce the rights of the copyright owners one by one and the copyright owners do not usually have the knowledge, expertise and resources to monitor all uses of their works.
The collecting society acts as a middleman between copyright owners and the users of the music. The relationship between the copyright owners and the collecting society is a fiduciary one where the copyright owners are the principals and the collecting society is the agent representing them.
The following is a simplified process of how a collecting society works:
1. The copyright owners (i.e., musicians, labels, producers, etc) join a collecting society and declare the specific works and rights which they want the society to administer for them.
2. The collecting society builds up a large repertoire or collection of works.
3. The users of the work (e.g. broadcasting stations, exhibitors, hotels and eateries) negotiate with the collecting society for a licence to use all the works in the repertoire of the collecting society for a specific period of time, for a fee, of course. This licence is called a 'BLANKET LICENSE' because it covers a lot of works.
4. The collecting society monitors the use of the licensed works.
5. The users submit records of the works used over a specified period to the collecting society (for example, the logs of music played on a particular radio station between July 1st and December 31st, 2012).
6. The collecting society pools all the proceeds paid by users, deducts a percentage for administrative costs and distributes the rest of the proceeds to the copyright owners based on the use of their works, as determined from the records submitted by the users.
I hope this helps you to understand the process better. I don't want to talk too much, so the next time we meet, remind me to explain to you how COSON could extend its repertoire to include the music of foreign artistes, too.
Oh, I knew I had forgotten something: Have an amazing 2013!!
© 2013 Tinukemi Alabi
Contact: tinukemi@gmail.com
