What if Gentleman Mike Ejeagha or his estate decide to sue Brain Jotter for using his song for the gwo gwo Gwo video without his consent or authorization as many lawyers and online semi-lawyers have advised?
Well, from my experience having handled similar cases like this, this is how it will play out!
Once there’s a contest on ownership or accusation of intellectual property theft or litigation on copyright infringement on a music or video, every digital platform that Brain Jotter uploaded the video (including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Tiktok and X) will take down the video, or the sound or the music on the video will be muted while the video will be allowed to remain on the platform.
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Knowing how much these platforms pay now for viral contents, that the video must have generated hundreds of thousands of dollars; calculations will be made and every money Brain Jotter have made from that particular video in every platform it was uploaded will be split into half and half will be ordered to go to Gentleman Mike Ejeagha or to his estate since he is the owner of the song.
The court will also award damages against Brain Jotter for copyright infringement or for using the song without the consent or authorization of Mike Ejeagha or his representatives.
I know this is not what most of you was expecting to hear but there is no need to get sentimental or emotional over this, this is how the law works especially intellectual property laws but I’m sure that Mike Ejeagha and his representatives are enjoying the trend and won’t want to breed rancor by approaching the court; his estate may likely ask for more money and the Brain Jotter that I know will definitely take care of the man and pay him more money as an honorarium or as homage but it’s not everything that should be taken to court, the court should always be the last resort. Let’s all enjoy this trend as trends like these are the things that distract Nigerians from economic hardship and keep us sane. I forgot to mention that litigation is expensive and it takes time, if this case goes to court, it might even spend up to 10 years in court before judgment will be given.
What Mike Ejeagha and those who care about him should be more concerned about is how he will get paid the royalties accruing to the song/album now that the album, Akuko N’ Egwu which contains the song is topping the charts so that it will be paid directly to him or directly to his estate and not to some distributor. Hopefully, they haven’t sold out the right to the song/album. The royalties from the digital streams and digital usage like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat usage etc should be running into hundreds of thousands of dollars already.