King Sunny Ade Wins N500m Copyright Suit 30 Years Later

 

Thirty years after he instituted a suit against

African Songs and its subsidiary, Take Your

Choice Stores, Juju maestro King Sunny Ade

now has cause to smile as he has been

awarded a whopping N500million as

damages, for infringing on his works with

additional cost of N3million for prosecuting

the suit.

According to a statement of claim filed

before the court by a Lagos lawyer Chief

Felix Fagbohungbe,SAN, in 1975, a contract

dispute arose between King Suny Ade and

the two companies culminating in a

judgement delivered by Justice Dosunmu of

a Lagos High Court.

In the said judgement the court ordered the

companies to return the master tapes of the

original musical works produced under the

label of the two companies by Sunny Ade,

but before the master tape could be

returned the chairman chief Executive

Office of the two companies Chief Bolarinwa

Abioro died.

Consequently,in a bid to retrieve the master

Tapes Sunny Ade in 1997 dragged the two

companies before a federal high court in

Lagos.

Joined as co-defendants are; Lati

Alagbada,Record manufacturing Nigeria

Limited, Ibukunola Printers, Alhaja Awawu

Ade Amodu and M.O. Alagbada, who he

alleged have been using the master tapes to

produce inferior qualities of his musical

works and sell them to members of the

public thereby depriving him of his means

of livelihood.

He contended that he was the

author,composer,and producer of all the

musical works numbering about 22.

He therefore demanded for damages in the

sum of N1 Billion jointly and severally and

prayed the court to order the two companies

to return to him his master tapes as well as

restraining the defendants from infringing

on his musical works.

In a defence and counter claim filed by the

two companies,they claimed that since

Sunny Ade has been paid royalties by the

companies he cannot lay claim to the tapes

again.

According to them, the contract he signed

with the two companies does not include

returning of the master tapes to him.

Consequently, they urged the court to award

N5million against Suny Ade and in their

favour.

In his judgement,Justice James Tsoho while

dismissing the counter claim of the two

companies for lack of merit, ordered the two

companies to pay Sunny Ade and his band

the sum of N500milion.

The judge also ordered that the master tapes

should be returned to Sunny Ade since it

has been proved beyond reasonable doubt

that he is the owner of the copyright.

The claim against other defendants were

struck out on the ground that not enough

evidence were adduced against them.

Based on the application made by Barrister

Yomi Adeniran from the law firm of Felix

Fagbohungbe SAN asking for a sum of

N5million as cost of prosecuting this case as

Sunny Ade have always been coming to

court whenever the case was coming

up,Justice Tsoho awarded N3million cost

against the two companies.