An Italy based Nigerian musician, Timothy Ozemebhoya Asotie, better known as ‘TOA’ has accused popular Nigeria singer, Harrison Tare Okiri, aka HarrySong of theft.
In a recent interview with take a break, TOA said HarrySong’s, ‘Selense’, is a copyright infringement on his own song titled ‘Selese’, which he released in 2016.
“HarrySong copied my song because I know of a radio presenter in Edo State who is very close to HarrySong and has been playing my song on air since last year on Edo Radio Station. Even when I came to Nigeria last year, it was still on the air. It was also on promotion at Alaba International but HarrySong just copied the song,” TOA alleged.
He added, “It was recently that I noticed he copied my song in his song ‘Selense’. So I decided to come out and complain because the song is covered by Italian copyright here in Italy. My song was released in February 2016 while Harrysong released his in May 2018.
Mine is titled ‘Selese’ while HarrySong’s is titled ‘Selense’. I won an award in 2016 in Amsterdam because of the song and also got several international award nominations from organizations both in Europe and USA, in the category of Best Song between 2016/2017. It has been on airplay on different radio stations in Europe and America.”
However, TOA is demanding that HarrySong pays him N50million to settle the alleged ‘song theft’, adding that all efforts to get in touch with the musician have proved abortive.
“I will not fold my hands and allow someone to steal what I labored for. I am demanding N50million from HarrySong for this copyright infringement. I have made efforts to get in touch with him but all efforts have proved abortive,” he said.
