COSON Commences Digital Monitoring Of Music Broadcast

Uzo Chikere

Every song aired by broadcast stations in Nigeria will henceforth be digitally monitored by the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON). The process which has already begun, according to a statement issued by the society’s public affairs officer, Mary Uket, has made COSON one of Africa’s fastest growing collective management organizations as it will now have at its disposal, empirical evidence of every song played by broadcast stations and similar users of music across Nigeria.

According to the statement, while this will provide critical information necessary for licensing and accurate distribution of royalties, working with COSON on the important monitoring project is a firm of young Nigerian IT professionals, PlaySpread Ltd. which has signed an agreement with COSON for delivering cutting edge information on which the organization will build its licensing and royalty distribution. 

Speaking during the signing ceremony which took place at the COSON head office in Lagos, COSON’s general manager, Mr. Chinedu Chukwuji, expressed confidence at the great potentials the agreement offers the society, pointing out that “This is a huge step for us at COSON and we are pleased at the results that will follow. This will definitely help us with transparency which is the cornerstone of COSON. It will also help us maintain an accurate database and ensure fairness to all. We will continue to deploy the best tools to deliver on our mandate as a collective management organization”.

Also speaking, Mr. Segun Jerome, Managing Director of PlaySpread Ltd. said his organization was pleased to work with COSON and the Nigerian music industry. He said, “We are glad that today has become a reality. PlaySpread Ltd. will see to it that we provide accurate solutions for the development of the music industry in Nigeria”.

COSON, which is the nation’s sole collective management organization, has as members nearly all the A-list artistes across Nigeria such as 2face Idibia, Bank W, Olamide, Whizkid, Chidinma, Waje, Omawummi amongst others.