Court awards music producer Spiky $250,000 in landmark case against CAF
After over five years of what seemed like a never-ending legal tussle, the Commercial Court 7 in Accra on Wednesday found the Confederation of African Football (CAF) guilty of infringing on the intellectual property rights of producer and tech enthusiast Spiky.
The court found Africa’s football governing body guilty of failing to obtain the necessary legal permission before using the talented producer’s musical beat, ‘Okomfo Anokye,’ as part of promotional materials for the 2018 CAF awards.
Anku At-Law, Lawyers for Spiky, born Kwabena Ofei-Kwadey Nkrumah, had argued that CAF plagiarised, appropriated, and infringed on the talented producer’s copyright by failing to acknowledge him as the owner.
The plaintiff asserted that CAF’s conduct was a blatant disrespect and disregard for his proprietary rights in his music and a flagrant and brazen infringement of his copyright, causing him the loss of substantial revenue from any licensing of his music for commercial use.
This lawsuit came three years after Spiky called out CAF for copyright infringement in a series of tweets in 2019. In the documents, Spiky noted that CAF had sent an email admitting to the infringement and apologised to him. They, however, failed to reply when he demanded to be compensated.
In its defense, CAF admitted to failing to obtain prior consent for using the soundtrack, which it claimed was “available online for free download without any restrictions or conditions, to use for the artwork posted on CAF’s social media platforms.”
However, CAF denied using the soundtrack for commercial purposes, as the awards were a non-profit event. They stated that they pulled down the artwork with Spiky’s background music from all their social media platforms and apologised on the same day the plaintiff’s claims came to their attention.
At the onset of the case, a very optimistic and determined Spiky said, “It’s not merely a settlement I’m looking for. My rights need to be vindicated, and that’s why I’m in court. Intellectual property is respected in other jurisdictions. They’d be scrambling to settle the issue as fast as possible if it was an international artist, but it’s taken five years.”
In Wednesday’s ruling, Justice Emmanuel Lodoh injuncted the football body and instructed the removal of all infringing materials from all their social media platforms.
He awarded damages of Ghana cedi equivalent of USD250,000 and a legal cost of Ghc40,000 against CAF.
Spiky, reacting to the ruling, said the legal battle and subsequent ruling is a win for the numerous other producers whose creative works have been stolen or illegally used without getting appropriate or any compensation.
