Kano filmmakers sensitised on royalties

Stakeholders in the film, entertainment and creative industry have met in Kano, Kano State, to fashion out ways through which filmmakers will benefit more from royalties that are supposed to come to them from their copyrighted materials. Brought together by the Audio Visual Rights Society of Nigeria (ARVS), the company, approved by the Nigerian Copyright […]

Stakeholders in the film, entertainment and creative industry have met in Kano, Kano State, to fashion out ways through which filmmakers will benefit more from royalties that are supposed to come to them from their copyrighted materials.

Brought together by the Audio Visual Rights Society of Nigeria (ARVS), the company, approved by the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) to operate as the sole Collective Management Organisation (CMO) for cinematograph films in Nigeria, the session addressed some of the challenges on the path of filmmakers getting value for their creative ideas.

Speaking during the stakeholders’ interactive session, Mahmood Ali-Balogun, the Chairman of ARVS, said the enlightenment effort was focused on getting the users – “those who exploit our works” – for them to see the need to be part of the move to sanitise the industry.

He further said the observed general apathy among Northern filmmakers (Kannywood) “is because they feel that given out their rights will amount to allowing AVRS to infringe on them, but we have made them understand that we don’t exploit people’s works, instead we help them to get royalties for the works they already have out there.”

The association’s President, Lawrence Udechukwu, said, “We don’t have anything against the implementation, but we are yet to know the modalities that are involved in the charges. You don’t just come and send a bill of N250,000 to N300,000 to a hotel just because it is a hotel. How do you calculate this?”

Meanwhile, the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) on Kannywood Matters to Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano State, Malam Musa Khalid, revealed that as part of steps to further improve the film industry in the state, the government was in the process of having a film development policy which would make Kano the first state to develop such after the federal government.