It was a joyous gathering of musicians, stakeholders, and music lovers this Tuesday, November 8, 2016 as Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), the sole approved Copyright Collective Management Organization for musical works and sound recordings unveiled ‘CLAP’, Nigeria’s first online licensing platform.
At the launch, Copyright activist and COSON Chairman, Chief Tony Okoroji while delivering his speech explained that since COSON was approved six years ago, it had made a public commitment to be constantly innovative and to do all in its power to become the leading copyright collective management organization in Africa.
Chief Okoroji stated that everyone in Nigeria can bear witness to the fact that at COSON there have been relentless efforts to protect the intellectual property rights of musicians and investors in the music industry in Nigeria and ensure that music industry stakeholders earn commensurate income from the enjoyment and exploitation by different individuals and organizations of their musical works and sound recordings. He went on to say that more than any other organization in Nigeria’s history, COSON had repeatedly gone to court to protect the interest of its members, assignors and affiliates.
Chief Okoroji further stated that as the Nigerian economy faces severe challenges and the need to diversify the economy becomes glaring, it becomes even more urgent that Nigerians understand that they can no longer afford to put to waste the products of the creative ingenuity of the people. Chief Okoroji also noted that it is also important that Nigerians understand that the brick and mortar economy is gone, the days of one hundred dollars a barrel of crude oil is also gone. The knowledge and digital economy is here with the Nigerian people and that the pillar of this new economy is the respect for intellectual property rights.
In the words of the COSON Chairman, ‘‘The respect for intellectual property rights ensures that those of our citizens who are employed in our creative industries earn good income, pay adequate taxes, provide employment to millions of our citizens, export their products to other lands, generate goodwill for our nation and ensure that our economy is booming’’.
On the launch of COSON Licensing Application Platform (CLAP), Chief Okoroji said, ‘‘Thousands of Nigerian businesses are aware of the value of music. Without the support of music, their operations will not run smoothly and there will be little or no profit. Music is therefore a critical ingredient in driving the success of these businesses. As we launch CLAP today, our objective is to make it easy and stress free for users of music in Nigeria to get the copyright license they require to legally play music in their business environments and facilities. Without leaving the comfort of your business, you can log on to www.clapng.com and obtain a copyright licence that allows you to deploy music in your business without exposing you to the dangers of copyright infringement in just 6 simple steps’’.
‘‘Let me welcome every user of music everywhere in Nigeria, especially the hotels, restaurants, clubs, event centres, the organizers of road shows, salons, barber shops, organizers of exhibitions and trade fairs, fitness centres and gyms, malls, shops, retail outlets, offices, transporters to CLAP, the easy to use internet COSON Licensing Application Platform’’, Chief Tony Okoroji concluded.
Present at CLAP launch were COSON Directors, Mr. Joel Ajayi, Mrs. Azeezat Allen; COSON General Manager, Mr. Chinedu Chukwuji; COSON’s consultant, Mrs Lucy Ajayi; popular reggae artiste, Ras Kimono; Gospel music star, Kenny Saint Best; C.E.O of Play Spread, Mr Segun Jerome; COSON’s Head of Documentation, Mr Vincent Adawaisi; and Representative of UBA Group, Mrs Adetoun Ogunnaike.
