The Portable vs Poco Lee saga: a case of intellectual property theft

The social media went agog yesterday, 21st December, 2021 with the video release of an upcoming “blown” Nigerian artiste with the stage name “Portable” who has recently clinched on to the highlight with his song “Zazuu”.

In the video, the Zazu hit singer complained bitterly of how Poco Lee a popular Nigerian dancer and entertainer is ripping him off the earnings accruing from his music hit song “Zazu”. He accused Poco Lee of stealing his song where Poco Lee is taking all the glory and credit of the song and that Poco Lee go about claiming that he Poco is the owner of the song and not giving him (Portable) the rightful owner of the song the credit and the earnings coming in from the song.

In no doubt, the Zazu song has become a street national anthem, topping musical charts and trending nationwide, hence the reason for the uproar.

It was discovered that Poco Lee who was only featured in the song together with Olamide by Portable, the owner of the song, went ahead and uploaded the song on Audiomack (a popular music streaming platform) under his (Poco Lee) name in that effect Poco Lee claiming ownership of the song.

This action of Poco Lee appears to be a clear case of intellectual property theft as he is stealing the copyright ownership of Portable over his song, and Portable can choose to drag him to court for the theft, and the court will award damages against Poco Lee and mandate Poco Lee to refrain from ever claiming ownership or copyright ownership of the Zazu song.

A person in the art world has a copyright ownership over his or her work and this copyright ownership is duly protected by the copyright laws against intellectual property theft and dispute in ownership from interlopers.

https://youtu.be/nxra-vddsQE