“Help me, help me, he Dey carry me go where I no no”, was/is a popular phrase in Nigeria that almost everyone has heard of. It was from a policewoman who was allegedly abducted by a bus driver and in her cry for help, she voiced; the help me, help me line.
The voicing was funny that people have been creating content around it and are still making content using the vocals of the “Help Me Help Me; even popular musicians like Asake used the vocals “Help me, help me, he Dey carry me go where I no no” as an intro in one of his hit songs; Peace Be Unto You”, the song have garnered over thirty million views on YouTube and hundreds of millions of streams on the streaming platforms.
Using funny vocals extracted from other people’s content as an intro for songs is not new to music-making both in Nigeria and in other jurisdictions. In the recent Phyno’s hit single; “Do I”, he used the vocals of “Mess Up, Mess Up”, a vocal content which is accredited to a famous Nigerian actor, Mike Ezuronye. It was from a scene in a movie where Mike Ezuronye was caught by Uche Jumbo cheating on her with other ladies; having been caught, Mike Ezuronye voiced “mess up, mess up”, in regret.
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As for the “help me, help me police lady, she was recently diagnosed with some illness and Asake reached out to her a few days back and gifted her the sum of five million nairas and this gift of five million naira from Asake the woman has generated a lot of controversy on social media with numerous divergent opinions. Whilst Some are praising Asake for his philanthropic act of gifting the lady five million naira, others say that Asake has been unfair for gifting the woman a meagre sum of five million naira out of the money he has made using the woman’s vocal. Some are also claiming that the woman does not own the legal rights to the contents since she did not copyright the vocals nor trademark the phrase.
Well, in instances like these; according to intellectual property laws and international best practices, an owner of a vocal or content used or sampled in the making of another content like a song or a video is presumed to be a co-owner of the song or video that the content was sampled in, therefore, he or she is entitled to royalties that accrue from the music or video.
Therefore, the lady in the Help Me, Help Me vocals definitely deserves royalties from the Asake’s “Peace Be Unto You” song in which the vocals were used as an intro and the royalties will sure be far more than five million naira. So as every other person whose voice has been used or sampled in a song over a video is entitled to royalties unless there is a contract stating otherwise and the owner of the content does not necessarily need to copyright the vocals or trademark phrase before they will be the legal owner of the contents and legally entitled to the royalties.
Be it as it may, I am not oblivion of the recent court judgment in the case of Banire V NTA Star TV and I can therefore fully appreciate the argument that the person who recorded the video and posted it is the rightful owner of the content and not the woman as adjudged in the case of Banire V NTA star TV (CA/A/345/2017) but this can be distinguishable because she was recorded without her consent or approval, hence she can lay claims to the content as her intellectual property.
Same with the” Mess up, mess up” vocals used by Phyno in his song which was lifted from the content of Mike Ezeruonye. In this instance, the producer(s) of the movie is entitled to royalties from Phyno’s “Do I” which the vocals were used as an intro unless there is a clause in the contract for engagement that every intellectual property in the movie is both shared with the actor/ the producer or it reverts back to the actor after sometime then Mr Mike Ezuronye will be entitled to the royalties.