The birth of a new collecting management organisation may translate into better prospects for stakeholders in the film industry, CHUX OHAI writes
There is hope that practitioners and other stakeholders in the Nigerian film industry will no longer have to worry about how to deal with unauthorised users of their works. A new collecting management organisation, known as the Audio-Visual Rights Society of Nigeria, will be doing that on their behalf any time from now.
Founded by leading filmmaker and former president of the National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners, Mahmood Ali-Balogun, the AVRS is to the film industry what the Tony Okoroji-led Copyright Society of Nigeria is to music artistes in Nigeria.
Just as COSON manages the rights of music artistes, the AVRS is expected to do the same for audio-visual copyright owners in the country. The organisation will collect money on behalf of its clients and distribute it same them.
Explaining why CMOS are vital to the entertainment industry, in a meeting with journalists in Lagos, Ali-Balogun says, “Over time, a filmmaker may be too busy to monitor the progress of his works that are already in the market. Since he needs to get his royalties or other entitlements from consumers using those works, especially online, he will have to seek the assistance of an organisation like the AVRS to get the money accruing to him and to ensure that his copyrights are not tampered with.”
The CMO, he notes, is legally entitled to 30 per cent of the money collected for the copyright owners as administrative costs. The remaining 70 per cent will go to the client.
But the copyright owner must be duly registered with the CMO before the latter can manage his rights for him.
Although registration is free, an intending member must first prove that he is a copyright owner. “We will verify the information you give us to make sure that you are a rights owner. If you are not registered with the AVRS as a member, you are not entitled to any collection from the organisation,” Ali-Balogun says.
The Audio-Visual Rights Society of Nigeria is still awaiting approval from the Nigerian Copyright Commission, though registered as a corporate organisation in 2013, before it begins to operate in the country.
When the organisation eventually comes on stream fully, it will have to deal with two categories of copyright owners in the entertainment industry. Describing the categories, the founder says, “The first category refers to the financial owners or those who have invested their money into a particular work. Executive producers belong to this group. In some cases, there are more than one producers of a movie. The person who is credited as the producer of the movie may not be the one who has invested his own money in it. The latter is usually the owner of the copyright of that movie.
“The second category of copyrights owners includes the directors, actors, scriptwriters and others, as well as members of the technical crew of the movie. These are the two sets of people that the AVRS hopes to take care of. But, what each person receives depends on the agreement reached between the copyrights owner and the CMO.
“Although a copyright owner can collect his royalties directly from online users of his work, AVRS may assist by getting Internet-based organisations like Google to help approach users on registered online platforms for payment of royalties.”
Ali-Balogun notes that though the AVRS may likely face some challenges in places where there is no respect for intellectual property, the management will have to tackle them through advocacy.
He says, “Right now there is the need to enlighten stakeholders. We just cannot force some things down the people’s throats. It is not possible. We must let them know what we are about to do.There will be room for negotiation with copyright users. Take the Lagos Sheraton Hotel and Towers, for example.
“In every room in that hotel music is provided. So the management cannot claim that they have not been using the intellectual property of musicians. They cannot say they won’t pay for it. The only thing they can do is negotiate with the CMO managing the rights of copyright owners what sum of money to pay.”
Regarding the sharing of royalties among several actors in a particular movie, beside the Executive producer, he says, “The producer knows who the lead actor is. He takes the chunk of the royalty. The remainder is shared among the supporting actors and other people that participated in the production of the movie. The essence is to bring in the artistes so that they will be able to enjoy some of the residuals that AVRS will be generating.”
Also, Ali-Balogun gives the assurance that the rates payable by users of content will be negotiable, depending on the individual users.
However, he says that AVRS operations may not affect the existing rights of digital broadcasting platforms, such as DSTV and StarTimes, as long as the copyright owners have licenced their works to the companies.
He says, “If you have licensed your works to such companies, AVRS has not business going to them. You will have to define the rights that you want us to manage. If you assign your broadcasting rights to DSTV, it will be paying you your due directly. But some rights that were assigned to DSTV have expired. Such rights were not given to the company in perpetuity. In this case, it behoves the AVRS to approach DSTV and demand that they pay the copyright owner his due. Then we would negotiate with them.”
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