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.