Excerpts:
How’s the PMAN faring
We are no longer in the danger zone. We are doing pretty well considering the fact that the organisation has been moribund for the past 12 years. We are changing the old perception people have about the organisation, which was characterized by fighting and quarrelling. I remember initially when we tried to partner with the banks about the plans we had for the organisation, the banks were jittery. But after series of discussions and reasonable convictions, we got the CBN and about 11 banks to invest in the new developments of the PMAN. We finally reached a compromise on the issuance of the combo pack. So, it is indeed a new dawn. We are trying to bring in a new community into PMAN where we can network amongst ourselves unlike before that it was all about fighting.
The major complaint of musicians is piracy, what plans do you have on ground to tackle this?
The truth is that musicians in this part of the world are not getting the real value for their works, and that is because there is no proper structure on ground. So, I went online to see how Dolly Parton, an old school musician that has not released an album for the past 32 years yet changes her private jet every six months… I spent months doing my research on her. I even spoke with some of her assistants, it was from there that we were able to understand how the system abroad works and what we are lacking here. We did our homework; all hands on deck and we were able to come up with some of the things they do and how their system works. So, the new combo pack is essentially the major deal we stumbled upon and we have also duplicated the system here.
What is the combo pack all about and how do you intend to put an end to piracy?
Now, if you register as a musician under PMAN, you will get a combo pack, which includes a Biometric Data Capture I.D card, Airtel CUG line and an ATM card. These three items are embedded with a lot of benefits. How it works is that, if you bring your work or media through PMAN, your work will be barcoded and encoded with GS1. This is the only barcoding and encoding company in the world right now and existing in 110 countries? Once your work is barcoded and encoded, what it means is that your works can now be traced including both physical and download sales. Now if your work that has been barcoded and encoded goes viral, the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System, NIBS, will get the hit from the sites and send it to us and then we will send it back to NIBS. NIBS will now do an invoice, they are the only authorized firm to get those funds from anywhere in the world, they will do an invoice to those companies and your money will be remitted to your account. The ATM is a Master Card that you can use to withdraw money from any part of the world. With this, your royalty goes straight to your account. And then, with the CUG line, you can call everyone on the line free of charge. With a monthly recharge of N1000, you can make endless phone calls.
Are you saying with this new development, pirates will no longer be in business?
(Chuckles…) They even called me a few days ago for a meeting, although I didn’t know what they wanted to discuss. We have reached a conclusion that by December every music/video CD that is not barcoded will be taken out of the shelves. It is a bit difficult to crack the barcode because what we did is that you bring your work, we barcode it and then we move it to the replicating plant. One CD cannot have two numbers, so if you want to have two million copies, they’ll do it and move them to the physical sales, which are done by NIPOST and Airtel. NIPOST will distribute it to all their offices in the county including 30,000 Airtel hubs. Now, if the marketer or ‘Alaba boy’ orders for his copy, it will be scanned. Once it is scanned, it will send trickles to the artiste’s royalty account. Before the pirates even think of duplicating, the musician has made his money.
What if a musician loses the card?
If a musician loses the card, he will go back to the bank because we no longer issue the cards. Once you lose the card, you will send a message to the union and it will be blocked.
The American music industry is very big and their awards always generate a lot of attention. What plans do you have to put Nigeria on that type of platform?
The first step is to have a structure, which we have been able to achieve to an extent, by building up a database. When we started this project, the CBN said we are the only music organisation in the whole of Africa that has a working server. We hosted our server in the watchful eyes of NIBS, which means that everyone who is into music is already on the database. Talking about awards, it was PMAN that started the first (music) awards in Africa, the Nigerian Music Awards. But because of the crisis rocking the organisation, it crashed. Once again, we will be putting Nigeria back on the world map.
Have you gotten any sponsorship from the government?
The new PMAN is not looking forward to government sponsorship because we are a private industry. We are the 4th largest music industry in the world and the first in Africa. Because we do not have a proper structure on ground, that is why people have been running to the government for sponsorship. So, what do we tell the government? That they should come and sponsor our awards or musicians? We now have a functional structure that rotates and revolves around us, so we will leverage on that to achieve what we want.
The MOU that you recently signed with some of the embassies, what was it about?
We have finally reached an agreement (with the embassies), which means that once you have a biometric card, you no longer need a recommendation letter (from PMAN to secure a visa). I recently gave recommendation letters to Kiss Daniel and Solid Star. But right now, that process has been scrapped. Your card will serve that purpose. Unlike before that you come to the union for that, now your card automatically acknowledges you.
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