SPINLET, PROTECTING ARTISTS’ RIGHTS

Digital content distribution outfit, Spinlet, has taken steps to prevent unauthorised videos downloads of its clients

To this effect, the company is set to use legal means to deak with infringers, plus using education and other means to protect the contents of its clients

To do this, however, a dedicated web crawling software employed by its monitoring team, working in tandem with in-house legal department that will continuously scour the web for unauthorised posting of content that is exclusive to Spinlet, has been set up

Offenders will be formally notified of their infringing content and requesting that it be taken down.

 If this does not work, or the infringer deliberately refuses to take the infringing content down, then a Cease and Desist notice is sent warning that the outfit will pursue civil remedies and push for criminal sanctions in the event the music is not taken down.  At the same time though, a similar notification and request will be sent to the host of the poster’s website, requiring that the webpage be taken down or the download links disabled.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed by the US Congress, has been very helpful in ensuring that most foreign website hosts comply very quickly with takedown requests. 

"We have found many Nigerian hosts to be wary of copyright infringement with a real desire to uphold the law and see artists get their just rewards.

"The most recent takedowns we requested took place during the recent exclusive release of the Fire of Zamani, the latest album from Ice Prince, on Spinlet. Within hours of release, Spinlet’s team found several unauthorised sites offering the music for free. The great majority of the website owners and domain hosts complied very promptly with our requests", Mark Redguard, the CEO, Marketing of the outfit said recently.

He believes that the majority of listeners want to access music legally and will shun pirate outlets if the music is easily accessible and is reasonably priced.

Sometimes, some pirate/unauthorised outlets do not even know they’re doing wrong, so Spinlet educates such persons by sending informative pamphlets to them and they have received some positive feedback from such recipients.

Another way of curtailing this infringement is by policing with Social Media

"Our experience is that the fans have become increasingly key to our success in finding and stopping infringers. By fans we mean both Spinlet and artists’ fans. In addition to this, there is growing peer pressure on social media as requests for links to illegal downloads are frequently met with derision and condemnation – there is now a strong sense of responsibility amongst music listeners, wanting artists to reap the benefits of their efforts.

It is believed that these measures will make it possible for Nigerian artistes to make money from their contents, thereby helping the entertainment industry to grow.