Popular Nigerian Musician, comedian and President of Edo State Chapter of the Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria, PMAN, Maleke on Tuesday dragged telecommunications giant, 9mobile to the Federal High Court Ikoyi over allegations of intellectual property theft and commercial exploitation of the said stolen intellectual property.
Maleke in the instituted case against the telecommunications giant is asking for the payment of damages to the tune of 500million Naira for the unauthorized copying, theft, sale and continuous resale for of sixteen different music tracks of Mr. Maleke as ring tunes on its website for a period upwards of seven years.
He lamented that the action of the telecommunication giant had caused him huge financial loss, stressing that all attempts to open communication channels with 9mobiles parent company were frustrated hence his resort to the law for remedy.
“I am a performing artiste and I believe these are my intellectual properties being used by another organization without my consent. They thought I was no longer active in the industry and felt they had the liberty to use my materials without due consultation. We actually reached out to them for amicable settlement, but they refused to give me and my team any audience and so we dragged them to court. I believe the court will decide and justice will definitely prevail”
It is quite unfortunate that a lot of Nigerian artistes don’t understand their rights and obligations in the industry. That is why we ask them to join associations and leagues, but no they would want to do it on their own. No organization has the right to use your property without having an agreement with you”
