BurnaBoy-Celebrate
The issue of copyright ownership of a material is it
a script, a song, a beat, a verse line, a concept, a
dance step, has been a major challenge in the
entertainment industry especially the music
industry everywhere in the world. To be honest, it
is even worst here in Nigeria since there are no
strict laws protecting intellectual property,
discovery and development.
GospelOnDeBeatz made major headlines few days
back on the recently released video of the song
“Celebrate” featuring our Burna Boy. Sure, if you’re
a Burna Boy follower, you will know that this guy
has got everything going for him musically.
GospelOnDeBeatz is an ace-producer based in the
Federal Capital City, Abuja who has worked with a
lot budding musicians most notably ‘All of you’ for
Davido.
In June of 2013, a song was released on the
internet with the tag; ‘BURNA BOY – CELEBRATE
[produced by GOSPEL ONDEBEAT]‘…fans of Burna
boy were excited. When Burna Boy’s LIFE album
came out, the song was conspicuously missing.
Unknowingly, the song actually belonged to
producer; Gospel.
On the 11th of September, the video to the song
‘Celebrate’ was released online and the tag
‘GOSPEL ON DEBEAT ft BURNA BOY’….few hours
later the video had been taken down from youtube
due to unknown reason.
HipHopWorld Online put a call to Gospel who
immediately turned off his phone after hearing the
‘What happened with you and Burna Boy video’
question put to him. More calls to him proved futile
as his phone had been switched off. Our
correspondent later got an anonymous call from a
member of Gospel’s team who narrated and
explained the situation and why the video had
been taken down.
“The video was taken down by Burna Boy’s
management…” he said…“…They said Gospel
breached a contract..”
According to him, Gospel is currently compiling
materials for his producer album and a while back
had met with Burna Boy while the latter was in
Abuja and the song was recorded. It was from the
release of the audio that it seemed like something
was up as the tag had been changed to be in Burna
Boy’s name….regardless, both parties were on
good terms.
A few months later when Burna Boy and his
manager were in Abuja, Gospel approached them
that he wanted to shoot a video to the song to be
shot by Patrick Elis. But on the day of the shoot,
Burna Boy’s lawyer called Gospel telling him to
refrain from shooting the video for reason
undisclosed….having his own team call back and
forth, they reached agreement which was signed.
Unknown to Gospel there is a clause that has him
handover the song to Burna boy but claim rights to
the productions and proceeds, upon release of the
video with the ‘GOSPEL ft BURNA BOY’ tag…the
clause was immediately activated.
He also went on to state that all was settled now.
”…But they have settled it now, it’s no big deal…
It’s just a lesson to the team.” On royalties, he also
added, ”They have agreed that the proceeds from
ringback tones/online sales will go to both parties
plus other things I can’t tell you right now…the
new video will be out in a bit”
A call placed to Burna Boy’s management team
picked up by Koch AR was met with a “No
comment”.
Well, good thing they have settled as this could
have gone messier.
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