In a unanimous
judgement delivered on May 29, the court upheld the decision of the federal
high court that the MCSN was the exclusive owner of the body of some musical
works over the Nigerian territory.
Festus Ogbuinya, who
read the lead judgment and the two other judges – Gabriel Kolawole and Bilikisu
Aliyu who agreed with him – resolved seven of the nine issues for determination
in favour of MCSN.
“The judgment of the
lower court, which is submissive to comprehension, is not antithetical to the
pleadings and evidence presented before it by the feuding parties,” said Mr
Ogbuinya.
“It utilised the
evidence the parties presented before it as adumbrated above. The finding does
not, in the least, smell of any charge of perversity levelled against it by the
appellant.”
The judge said
Multichoice Nigeria was “stingy” in illustrating how it was afflicted with a
miscarriage of justice.
“From the concrete evidence,
the reasonable probability to earn a favourable result in its favour was, with
respect, an echo of mirage.
“On the whole,
having resolved the live issues one, three, four, five, seven, eight (partly),
and nine against the appellant, the fate of the appeal is obvious. It is bereft
of any grain of merit and deserves the penalty of dismissal. Consequently, I
dismiss the appeal.”
The court, however,
did not order the payment of N200 million and N300 million general and
aggravated damages respectively against the multinational granted by the lower
court.
Multichoice Nigeria
had dragged the MCSN to court in 2011 after the music body wrote to it
demanding N4.1 billion as cumulative copyright and royalties for musical
contents used by the company in its programmes.
According to the
company, it is not obliged to pay to MCSN royalties for material used in
programming on DSTV because the body is not licensed by the Nigerian Copyright
Commission.
But the MCSN argued
that the musical works in question were assigned to it by two international
organisations, Performing Rights Society and Mechanical Copyright Protection
Society.
While delivering his
judgement in January 2018, Mohammed Idris struck out Multichoice’s claims
against the Nigerian body.
‘A JURISTIC
PERSONALITY’
In his judgement, Mr
Ogbuinya noted that although the appellant (Multichoice) accused the respondent
(MCSN) of not having a certificate of incorporation, there was no record of it
before the court challenging its legal status.
“There is, perhaps,
a possible reason for the appellant’s failure to challenge the legal status of
the respondent, ” Mr Ogbuinya said.
“It would be
recalled that at the time the appellant filed its pleading, its claim was still
bubbling with viability and vitality. At that time, it could not have queried
the legal capacity of the respondent it had sued. To do so would have meant
robbing the lower court the jurisdiction to entertain its claim against a
non-juristic person. The law frowns on it.”
Mr Ogbuinya said the
appellant, in its pleading, starved the court the crucial assertion that
questioned the legal capacity of the respondent to institute a counter-claim.
“In view of these, I
will not label the first respondent as a non-juristic unit, stripped of the
capacity to sue or defend the counter-claim in the lower court, in order not to
insult the law.
“Contrawise, I crown
it with the toga of a juristic personality with all the attendant rights and
liabilities appurtenant to it.”
The judge also
faulted the failure of the appellant to produce its broadcast logs despite the
lower court’s command
“The absent
broadcast logs, justifiably, cried for the attention of the lower court to
douse the damning evidence of the respondent.”
0 Comments