Berri Tiga and Carter Efe copyright (ownership) fight should set the precedence.

by Stanley Alieke, Esq.

Berri Tiga and Carter efe made a song together. According to the backstage story, Carter efe had the idea and conceived the concept for the song and shared the idea with Berri Tiga, then Berri Tiga wrote and recorded the song from the start to finish.

The idea/ concept for the song is to sing praises and adoration to Wizkid, hence they named the song “Machala”, one of Wizkid’s numerous pet names.

Carter efe gave the song a huge promotion and undeniably, due to the push he gave the song made the song “blow up” and topped music charts. That is where the fight started as to the rightful owner of the song and entitlement to the royalties that will accrue to each of them since the song is generating huge revenue on music platforms.

It is obvious that they had no prior contract or written agreement as to the ownership or entitlement to the song before the song was released. Carter Efe claimed that he is the real owner of the song since he was the one that conceived the idea of the song and he was also the one that promoted the song and made it “blow up”. He is not contesting the fact that he did not contribute to the writing and recording of the song. Writing and recording of the song were all done by Berri Tiga.

Carter Efe’s claim of ownership to the song, therefore, revolves around the fact that the concept behind the song was his and he also made the song “blow up” due to his aggressive promotions.

Issues like this are not foreign to the Nigerian music scene and they will keep happening unless artists learn how to make do with contracts before they collaborate on any project. The contract will set up the sharing formula of the royalties or revenues generated from the song and also clearly state the copyright ownership of each of the contributors in the project and the sharing formula of revenues that are generated from the project.

This particular issue only came to public knowledge due to the fact that the song was (is) a huge success, hence the fight for ownership and royalties.

The position of the law:
As a general rule, the person who writes and records a song owns the copyright of that song in totality but if more than one person contributed to the writing and recording of the song, the persons involved are to be the co-owners or joint owners to the copyright of that song. In the absence of a written agreement as to the joint ownership of the song, it is presumed in law that the contributors will own the copyright equally.

To this effect, since it was Berri Tiga that wrote and recorded every component of the song, he is before the law the rightful owner of the song, and every copyright of the song belongs to him.

All the royalties or revenues generated from the song should presumably go to him unless they made a contract that stated otherwise.

It does not matter that the idea for the song belonged to Carter efe and Carter efe promoted the song, Carter efe is deemed to have rendered a service to Berri Tiga and Berri Tiga is to only pay him compensation for the services he (Carter Efe) rendered in the making of the song.

They can only claim joint ownership of the song and royalties or revenues shared between them if they both wrote and recorded the song and each person contributed a line or a verse to the making of the song.

Stanley Alieke is a lawyer based in Abuja.
infoitooknow@gmail.com