The Performing Musicians Employers Association of Nigeria (PMAN) has accused Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed of intellectual property theft.
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PMAN in a petition it made public through its Facebook page, accused the minister of plagiarising the proposal the association presented to him under the name, ‘Bar Coding Technology for the Creative Industry in Nigeria’ to organize a two-day conference on Creative Industry between July 17 and 18, 2017 in Lagos.
The musicians’ association through its counsel, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, in a five –page petition to the Minister, dated July 20, 2017, threatened to sue Alhaji Muhammed if at the expiration of 72 hours from the date of its receipt of the petition, the Ministry continues to engage in programmes, activities and events that are apparent implementation of its original ideas expressed in the proposal and action plan contained in the Bar Coding Technology for the Creative Industry in Nigeria.
“Though the conference was deceptively tagged “creative industry financing conference”, it is our client’s firm belief that the conference was held in full implementation of our client’s original brain child and ideas as clearly highlighted in their respective presentation of 5th August, 2016 and Action Plan of 18th August, 2016, all in the possession of the Ministry of Information and Culture.
“Constituting creative economy conference formed part of the preliminary intervention measure proposed by our client in the implementation of Bar Coding Technology on the Creative Industry in Nigeria.
“Our client viewed this action as a grave infringement of their intellectual property rights and dubious conversion of their brain child ideas and concept, originating from painstaking professional study, research and investigation that gulped them over N500,000,” the petition read in part.
