The Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) has registered in strong terms it’s rejection of the process and procedure being adopted to by the Nigerian Senate to discuss a new Executive Bill to replace Nigeria’s current copyright law.
This is contained in a letter which COSON wrote to the President of the Senate, Senator Ahmed Lawan, a day before a hurriedly scheduled public hearing on the bill by the upper house, complaining about it’s mode in that regard.
In the four-page letter signed by Chief Tony Okoroji, COSON Chairman and former President of PMAN, COSON said that it was very clear that the Senate was being stampeded to pass a very dangerous bill infested with many bad and anti-democratic provisions that woulg stifle the growth of creativity in Nigeria and damage the Nigerian economy going forward.
If passed into law, according to the letter, the bill would turn Nigerian musicians, authors, film makers, computer programmers, publishers and the many creatives who depend on a good copyright system, into the slaves of a few civil servants at the Nigerian Copyright Commission.
Said COSON: “If Section 39 of the bill becomes law, in a supposed democracy, no copyright owner in Nigeria who negotiates or grants a licence for the use of his work, will be able to exercise his constitutional right of going to court anymore to enforce his rights, except he gets the permission of civil servants at the Nigerian Copyright Commission!”
Wrote COSON while mentioning several sections of the bill: There are countless provisions in the bill giving the Nigerian Copyright Commission and its personnel such powers and privileges not possessed by any other government agency. A lot of these provisions are not in line with diverse public service rules. Indeed, in so many situations, the Nigerian Copyright Commission has put itself in the place of the owners of copyright to take decisions on behalf of the copyright owners which decisions are business decisions ordinarily taken by the owners of copyright or their agents”.
According to COSON, the commission neither has the competence, the staff, the technology, nor the lack of bias and, has not shown over time that it has the slightest capacity to exercise the powers it is grabbing and the result will be utter confusion and frustration.
Under Section 104 (2), the letter Noted, no one could bring any action against the Commission or any member of its staff on any matter whatsoever, whether private or official, except a three-month written notice of intention to commence the suit is served upon the Commission by the intending plaintiff or his agent. According to COSON, no government official or even any of Nigeria’s senators enjoys such privilege or protection.
Furthermore, the letter said that under Section 100 of the bill, if any citizen gets a judgment against the Commission, no execution or attachment of process can be issued against the Commission, unless prior to such execution, not less than three months’ notice of the intention to execute or attach has been given to the Commission.
COSON in the letter complained that it received for the first time by e-mail the 88-page document with 109 sections only three working days before the scheduled Public Hearing which incidentally is holding on October 12, the same day that COSON is holding a major event in Lagos to celebrate the life and times of Prof (Sir) Victor Uwaifo, one of Nigeria’s greatest creative geniuses of all time, who died on August 28 and will be buried this week.
The letter also pointed out that under Section 87 of the bill, Nigeria will start a new regime of the registration of copyright, which COSON says is “a totally unnecessary and anachronistic adventure and a very bad move”.
COSON added that reading through the document, it is clear that it was drafted by Civil Servants with definite self-serving agenda and academics with very little copyright industry experience.
Read the letter: “The contradictions and conflicts in the document are fundamental and not such that can be repaired by any panel beating. Indeed, the Head of Service of the Federation needs to look at the document to expunge the many anti-Public Service proposals. A very transparent process in which the true stakeholders are on the table needs to be commenced if the intent is not to suppress Nigeria’s creative output and kill our copyright industries”.
Wrote COSON conclusively: “For the good of the Nigerian nation and posterity and not to make Nigeria the laughing stock of the world, the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is requested not to put its imprimatur on the terrible piece of legislation known as the ‘Executive Copyright Bill’”.
