COSON Scores Bull’s Eye With 7th Extra-ordinary General Meeting

.Distributes =N=200Million .Acquires New House

Just last Thursday, December 15, 2016, the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) held its Extra-ordinary General Meeting in Lagos. The event attracted the who is who in the music and sound recording industry in Nigeria who keenly absorbed the following speech as delivered by the organisation’s chairman, Chief Tony Okoroji. Beats-onit presents the speech verbatim. Enjoy:

Fellow members of COSON, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with the deepest warmth and pleasure that I welcome you to this Extra-Ordinary General Meeting of our society and wish you a merry Christmas and a happy and most prosperous 2017.

You all can bear witness that without fail, in the last six years since COSON was approved by the Government, we have had an Annual General Meeting every May and an Extra-Ordinary General Meeting

Chief Tony Okoroji

every December. These meetings have offered us the opportunity to interact with each other, ask questions and be updated on the administration of our society, make contributions to the direction of COSON and reaffirm our faith in the mission of our dear COSON.

Our constant interaction is one of the cornerstones of the growth and stability that COSON has enjoyed and I want to thank you, every member of COSON, for making possible that which was said to be impossible.

Fellow members of COSON, imagine that just seven years ago, a meeting like this would have been unimaginable. Any talk of any meaningful royalty distribution in Nigeria would have been a pipe dream.

Do you know that when COSON was approved by the government just about six years ago, I was told that collective management of copyright would never work in Nigeria? I was repeatedly told that broadcasting stations, hotels and night clubs would continue to play music for free as they had done for a period of over forty years, at our detriment and the detriment of other creators and investors in the Nigerian music industry despite what the law says. Indeed, I was told that the law does not work in Nigeria.

I am sure that those who doubted us did not reckon with the strength of our arguments and the determination in our hearts. You are all witness to the fact that in those six years, with a never say die attitude and a significant struggle, COSON has signed an agreement with the entire Nigerian broadcasting industry for the payment of copyright royalties. Please turn to the person sitting next to you and say, ‘COSON has made the impossible, possible’.
In the same six years, COSON has also signed a similar agreement with the hotel industry across the nation. You can once again turn to the person sitting next to you and say, ‘COSON has made the impossible possible’.

This same COSON which was given no chance six years ago, today has reciprocal representation agreements with other CMOs covering about 140 countries and territories in every continent ensuring that Nigerian music is protected around the world.

As you well know, COSON has collected and distributed several hundreds of millions of naira to right owners across Nigeria. You can bear witness to the fact that without stories and without excuses, COSON has paid royalties every year since inception.

A cross section of members listens to the COSON GM, Mr. Chinedu Chukwuji deliver his speech

Fellow members of COSON, it is not yet El Dorado and there is still a lot of work to do but I say to you, when someone says to you, ‘nothing works in Nigeria’ please shake your head and say to the person, ‘COSON is working!’

While COSON is working, COSON must continue to work better and better. We must spread our wings across the entire Nigerian nation. We must remain hard working, creative, transparent and 100% accountable. We must march on in our mission to become the most respected collective management organization in the entire continent of Africa.

In the process of spreading our wings and strengthening our society, on Tuesday, February 16, 2016 at the main hall of Rockview Hotel, Owerri, Imo State, COSON held a major Stakeholders’ Forum for copyright owners in the South-East and South-South states of Nigeria. The event brought together top artistes, songwriters, composers, music publishers, performers, record companies, broadcast stations, hotels, night clubs, restaurants, transport companies., etc. from Imo, Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Rivers, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Cross River states. The event which was attended by the Governor of Imo state, Owelle Rochas Okorocha and some members of his cabinet, was a huge success.

On Thursday, September 8, 2016 at the main hall of Kakanfo Inn and Conference Center, Ibadan, Oyo state, your society also held another major Stakeholders’ Forum for copyright owners in the South-West. The event also brought together top artistes, songwriters, composers, music publishers, performers, record companies, broadcast stations, hotels, night clubs, restaurants, transport companies., etc. from Oyo, Osun, Ogun and Ondo states. The Ibadan stakeholders’ forum was preceded with visits to the royal palace of the Olubadan of Ibadan, His Majesty, Oba Saliu Akanmu Adetunji and several radio stations across the city. At the end of the forum, COSON held a historic interactive session with students of Nigeria’s premier university, the University of Ibadan.
This past September 1, on our annual ‘No Music Day’ several top artistes, intellectual property lawyers, music industry stakeholders and copyright experts were spread out by COSON in an intricately planned and coordinated communication masterclass and they simultaneously took to the air waves on different radio and television stations all over Nigeria to spread the word on the intellectual property revolution in Nigeria powered by COSON. At COSON Headquarters, a ‘No Music Day” Command Center was set up from which the unprecedented communication activity which also involved several internet bloggers was coordinated. A well-attended Open House event was also held at COSON HQ and major policy proposals were articulated and forwarded to different government institutions for study and implementation.

Last month, I led a powerful COSON delegation to Abuja, the federal capital. In 24 hours, the delegation met with 3 different key ministers of the present government, namely, the Minister of Communications, Barrister Adebayo Shittu; the Minister of Information & Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and the Attorney-General of the Federation & Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami. We also met with several Directors-General. At each meeting, our position was clear that at a time of economic recession, Nigeria’s creative industries, properly harnessed, must play a key role in revamping our economy and providing real jobs for our teaming masses.

The COSON delegation went to Abuja in pursuit of key policy objectives that should lead to increased income for stakeholders in our industry and a more vibrant national economy.

One of those key policy objectives is the activation of the private copy levy scheme which should reduce the effect of private copying on people in the creative sector and boost the revenue available to the sector including distributable income to COSON members and affiliates. With the firm promises made to our delegation by the Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation and the visible steps he has taken since our meeting, I am satisfied that finally, the activation of the private copy levy scheme is receiving appropriate attention.

As you all well know, when the GSM companies operating in Nigeria were licensed, no one could have predicted that they would so quickly become important distributors of content and intellectual property.

These companies which were initially licensed to carry ‘voice’ have evolved to become the major distributors of music in a completely unregulated atmosphere.

Serious issues of Intellectual Property abuse have arisen from this development resulting in several ongoing court cases. Two of those cases: COSON v. MTN and COSON v. ETISALAT were brought to court by COSON. The Nigerian Copyright Commission is also prosecuting MTN and its officers at the Federal High Court in Abuja in a criminal matter related to intellectual property abuse. It is clear to us that if the issues are not addressed, many more cases will end up in court making the environment for the operations of the telecom companies turbulent.

While we have sought judicial intervention in specific cases, we also went to Abuja to seek administrative intervention at the highest level to ensure that going forward, all contributors to the pie get their appropriate share of the pie and that the interaction between the telecommunication industry and the creative industry positively affects the Nigeria economy. In Abuja, we received unequivocal assurance from the Honourable Minister of Communications that he will personally address the issues with despatch.

Meanwhile, it has come to our notice that some of the telecommunication companies and their platform providers have resorted to the usual divide and rule tactics in an attempt to break the will of COSON members. Some of you may have received letters querying your membership of COSON. Please do not let anybody intimidate you and hold you down to eternal slavery. Our cause is right.

You would not have forgotten the attempt by the broadcast industry to ban the broadcast of the music of COSON members a few years ago. How did that pan out? Don’t let anyone scare you. Let me assure you that any attempt to break the back of COSON will fail and fail woefully. I also assure you that at the end of the day, the ‘telcos’ will do what is right.

Whilst we cannot undervalue the importance of our agreement with the broadcast industry. I wish to report that from the COSON/BON/IBAN/NBC/NCC Agreement, the broadcast industry owes COSON a significant amount of money, money which should be available for distribution to our members and affiliates.

This is one of the issues our delegation took to Abuja last month. You must have heard that the Honourable Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, has forcefully called on all broadcasting stations operating in Nigeria to honour the copyright royalty agreement they entered with COSON in 2014.

Following the Minister’s call, we have had follow up meetings with the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Mallam Ishaq Modibbo Kawu and the Director-General of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Dr. Mansur Liman both of whom were at our meeting with the Honourable Minister. We want to ensure that this massive debt owed by broadcasting stations to COSON is collected and distributed to our members and affiliates. I believe that in the coming months, the full result of our mission to Abuja will become apparent.

I want to thank all the members of the COSON delegation to Abuja, specifically, the Afro juju kingpin, Sir Shina Peters, Rub-a-Dub Maestro, Ras Kimono, our gospel music star with a difference, KSB, Queen of Love, Azzezat and our indefatigable General Manager, Mr. Chinedu Chukwuji.

I want to specially thank our Public Affairs Consultant, Mrs. Lucy Ajayi for the incredible success of our

Abuja mission.

While we continue to increase our presence across the country, the fact is that any serious review of the royalties collected by COSON in the last six years will show that they have been collected essentially from Lagos, Abuja and a little percentage from Edo State. Our members across the country benefit from these collections even though in most cases, there is no income from the states where they operate. This also makes it difficult for many of the members to receive any significant income from our specific distribution. To address this situation, we must work harder to ensure that every part of the country is contributing to the purse from which we all benefit.

It is in that attempt to expand our income base with less administrative cost that your society recently launched CLAP, the COSON Licensing Application Platform, Nigeria’s first online copyright licensing portal. With CLAP, anyone anywhere can obtain a COSON licence in a few minutes without any human interaction.

This gives us an additional tool to ensure that we provide world class services to our users.

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. Our objective of setting up CLAP 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 their businesses, users can log on to www.clapng.com and obtain a copyright licence that allows them to deploy music in their businesses without exposing them to the dangers of copyright infringement.

Let me invite every COSON member across the country to spread the message of CLAP to every nook and cranny of your locality where music is used publicly or commercially, especially to hotels, restaurants, clubs, event centres, organizers of road shows, salons, barber shops, organizers of exhibitions and trade fairs, fitness centres and gyms, malls, shops, retail outlets, offices, transporters and so on.

You will recall that at the COSON Extra Ordinary General Meeting held at Lagos Airport Hotel, on December 15, 2015, you unanimously mandated the Board to use the income of the society to acquire a permanent accommodation to serve as the headquarters of COSON instead of continuing with the payment of rent on other people’s property.

I am pleased to announce to you today that in keeping with your mandate, your society has acquired and fully paid for a big multi-million Naira property at No 41 Oluwaleyemu Street, off Allen Avenue, Ikeja. When fully renovated, the property to be known as “COSON HOUSE” will have state of the art facilities for the operation of any modern organization and provide sufficient accommodation for our growing work force. It is our hope that by time the next AGM takes place, we would have moved from Omodara Street to COSON HOUSE.

I want to congratulate every member of COSON for this historic achievement not made by any organization in the creative industries before now. Let me remind you that none of us can truly say anymore that he or she is not a landlord because we are all owners of COSON HOUSE.

As we celebrate these developments, I am happy to inform you that in keeping with our Articles of Association, the Board at its meeting of November 29, 2016, has appointed one of our frontline members, Ras Kimono to serve out the term held by another member, Banky Wellington on the Board. Banky had informed the Board that due to some commitments, he is no longer able to give as much time to the Board as he would love to and had requested to be allowed to step down and that he would like to reoffer himself to serve in future. The Board has thanked Banky for his service to COSON and also thanks Kimono for his acceptance to contribute to the continued growth of our society.

We all know that the year 2016 has been a most difficult year for almost every Nigerian and every organization operating in Nigeria. As a result of the effect of the huge drop in the price of crude oil which has affected the national economy, the astronomical rise in inflation, the severe crash of the Naira and Nigeria being officially declared a nation in recession, most organizations that we license have said that they are under tremendous stress and are complaining bitterly about their ability to comply with our demands. COSON is being owed hundreds of millions of Naira in royalties across the nation.

Despite what is a very hostile environment under which your society has had to operate and an economy hit by severe recession and despite the acquisition of the multi-million Naira ‘COSON House’ which is fully paid for, your Board is today putting before you a scheme for the distribution of a record sum of N200,000,000.00 (Two Hundred Million Naira), a 42.86% increase on the sum of N140,000,000.00 (One Hundred & Forty Million Naira) which you approved for distribution last year.

If you are kind enough to approve the Board’s proposal, a sum of N77,650,000.00 (Seventy-Seven Million, Six Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira) or about 38.825% of the total sum recommended will be set aside for General Distribution to 3,106 (Three thousand, One hundred and Six) members of COSON whose names appeared on our register as at May 19, 2016. This amount is a 41.28% increase over the sum of N54,960,000.00 (Fifty-Four Million, Nine Hundred and Sixty Thousand Naira) approved by you for General distribution last year.

If the proposal being put forward is approved by you, each COSON member who owns a Diamond Bank account will receive an alert this afternoon showing that the sum of N25,000.00 (Twenty Five Thousand Naira) has been credited to his or her account, being royalty from the General Distribution. Those who own accounts in other banks and whose bank details have been submitted to COSON should receive similar alerts within the next 72 hours. The General Distribution royalty for 2016 has increased by 25% over the sum of N20,000.00 (Twenty Thousand Naira) paid out to each member as General Distribution, last year.

It might be necessary to inform all of you that while the total sum dedicated to general distribution has increased substantially, the number of members sharing the money has also increased. From a total of 2,748 members qualified for General Distribution during the last exercise, we now have 3,106 members eligible for General Distribution this year. This is an increase of about 13%.

Similarly, if agreed, the sum of N122,350,000.00 (One Hundred & Twenty-Two Million, Three Hundred & Fifty Thousand Naira) or about 61.175% of the total distributable sum will be set aside for Specific Distribution. This is a 45% increase on the N84,040,000.00 (Eighty-Four Million and Forty Thousand Naira) approved for Specific Distribution last year. After due analyses of all logs received from the users and on the COSON digital airplay monitoring platform, the specific royalty cheques should be received by the appropriate right owners before the end of the first quarter of 2017.

At COSON, we are constantly working hard to improve our service delivery. As I informed you last year and in line with the government’s cashless policy, there shall be no cash payment to any member or affiliate. Any member who has not submitted his account detail to the society is requested to do so immediately after this meeting.

Please let me remind you that the Extra – Ordinary General Meetings which we have held every December in the last five years are not required under the Copyright Act, The Company & Allied Maters Act, the Copyright (Collecting Society) Regulations or even the COSON Articles of Association. The fact is that our Annual General Meetings which we have held religiously in the month of May every year is all that the law asks of us.

It has however been the position of your Board that in developing an enduring system of the collective management of copyright in Nigeria, we must go the extra mile. We verily believe that members of COSON must constantly get together and exchange ideas on the progress of their society. It is our belief that if COSON does not exhibit and is not seen to exhibit full transparency and accountability, our mission will be truncated.

The Extra-Ordinary General Meetings which we have held in the month of December is an essential element of that desire to go the extra mile as we bring together the members of COSON during the end of year period, a period of goodwill so that as a family, we can break bread, share a drink and a song and be updated on the state of our society.

As you may also know, in most collective management organizations in the world, once the rules are set, the distribution activity becomes simply a management function which may or may not attract any impute of the Board. At COSON however, we have since inception sought the approval of members at a General Meeting such as this to undertake any distribution exercise.

In other words, your Board and management have the authority to undertake a distribution without seeking the resolution of members at a General meeting like this. Our Board however believes that every effort must be made to carry every member of the family along and that the spirit of transparency and accountability which have been the cornerstones of the rapid progress made by COSON must be maintained.

I know that there are those who believe that the Extra-Ordinary General Meeting we hold every December is a waste of money. It is however my belief that the policy of putting our distribution proposals before our members and seeking your mandate before distributions are undertaken have helped to bring about confidence within the membership and have ensured the stability that COSON has enjoyed.

I want to thank all my colleagues on the Board for their dedication and sacrifice and the peace and progress that reigns in COSON. I also want to thank the General Manager and all the staff for their hard work in pursuit of the COSON vision. Finally I must thank the entire membership for your support. Without you, there is no COSON.

As I review the spirit of co-operation at COSON and the amount of work being done in the society, I have no doubt that the future is very bright for all of us. I am certain that we will have much increased royalties in the years ahead. We just need to remain consistent and continue to water the seeds that we have planted.

Once again, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy and very prosperous 2017