The journey of Nigerian folksong: from community property to digital dilemma

How community music becomes everybody's music

Humans have always pursued innovation — the drive to improve on what came before constantly pushes new developments forward. Music, as a cornerstone of global culture, has never been immune to this force.

Countless breakthroughs have reshaped the musical landscape. Howard (2000) points to milestones such as Guido of Arezzo's invention of notation, the birth of opera, the development of equal temperament, Bartolomeo Cristofori's pianoforte, and the creation of recorded sound.

None of these inventions could have existed without patent protection. But the real product of these innovations is, at its core, sound — and that raises the question of how to protect sound and the creative activities that generate it. Wen Jiabao, as cited by Odunaike (2017), observed that intangible assets — knowledge, information, creativity, and inventiveness — have replaced land, labour, and capital as the fuel for economic growth. If a new order has truly replaced the old, then we must either expand existing mechanisms or develop fresh ones to safeguard creative works, performances, and performers.

The twenty-first century has brought wave after wave of technological breakthroughs. These discoveries are meant to boost efficiency, reduce drudgery, and improve daily life. Today we have iPods capable of storing over 1,700 tracks, high-capacity flash drives and memory cards, MP3 players, Napster, peer-to-peer networks, and countless other devices.

Yet along with these marvels comes a mounting challenge — the threat to creativity in the form of dwindling royalties for rights holders. Once-thriving stars find themselves impoverished, having lost financial control over their own hard work. In Nigeria, the situation is especially grim, because people struggle to separate deeply ingrained traditional views of music ownership from present-day realities. This essay explores how the communal ownership of African arts, and particularly music, has inadvertently fostered piracy. We trace this journey from folksongs through parody and into the global pool of world music, and we propose measures to counter this alarming trend.

Folksong traditions in Nigeria

Scholars have defined folksong or folk music in various ways, depending on their perspective. Hadley (1980) describes folk music as the product of a musical tradition that evolved through oral transmission. Ofosu (1989) adds a valuable nuance: a folksong is any traditional song of obscure and indeterminate antiquity that has passed into general acceptance and use. Its composer or creator is unknown, and the song is tightly bound to a culture where it serves a positive, functional role. Similarly, Microsoft Encarta (2009) notes that folksongs are primarily communal compositions — anonymous expressions of the society or culture that gave birth to them, even if a melody or text originally came from a single, now-forgotten individual.

We use the terms folksong and folk music interchangeably here, following Ofosu (1989) and Aluede (2008), who treat them as synonymous. These definitions highlight several critical features for our discussion:

• Folksongs are communal compositions
• They are of obscure and indeterminate origin
• Their composers are almost never known
• They pass from generation to generation through oral transmission
• They are bound to a specific culture

These characteristics are essential because they underpin much of what follows in this study.

Parody in contemporary Nigeria

Before discussing how far parody has travelled in Nigeria, we should define the term. Apel and Daniel (1960) describe parody in modern usage as a satirical imitation of a serious work — achieved, for instance, by substituting a comical text or creating a caricatured version of the music. In earlier usage, "parody" simply meant reworking, with no satirical intent. Apel (1969) later defined a related term, "contrafactum," as a vocal composition where an original text is replaced by a new one — typically a secular text swapped for a sacred one, or the reverse. Turkson (1992) elaborates by calling parody a satirical imitation either through substituting a comic text or by comically altering the character of the composition; he notes that in earlier practice, this kind of textual replacement often lacked any caricature and is more properly called contrafactum.

When we compare these definitions, the difference between parody and contrafactum is negligible. Etymologically, parody comes from French and contrafactum from Latin, but both refer to musical adaptation. Because parody is the more familiar term, we use it throughout this article.

As noted earlier, folksongs are communal, of unknown origin and authorship, transmitted orally, and culture-bound. Before we examine these attributes more closely, it is worth quoting Okwilagwe (2002), who wrote:

Music in Nigeria, essentially, derives its origin and versatility from the oral traditions or the folklore of the different ethnic groups that make up the Nigerian nation. The varying musical styles observed within these large cultures in Nigeria are truly enormous, rich, exciting.

The defining features of Nigerian folksongs — oral transmission, communal ownership, indeterminate origin — have left them defenceless. People feel entitled to use them under any circumstances without hesitation. The idea that folksongs belong to no one has blurred into a general attitude toward all recorded music. Even after rearrangements are recorded, the public still treats the result as collective property that can be borrowed freely, without restraint.

Copyright laws and music in Nigeria

Section 26(2) of the Nigerian Copyright Act defines performance in artistic terms: it includes dramatic performance, musical performance, a reading or recitation of literary work, or any similar live presentation given by one or more individuals. Odunaike (2017) points out a crucial gap: the Act does not define a "performer," and the first three international instruments on performers' rights make "performance" — not "performer" — the subject of protection. Bakan (2012) reminds us that support and ownership of music are major forces shaping how music lives in communities; some music is the property of a family lineage or an entire village, while other types are not regarded as property at all, being seen instead as an integral facet of communal life absorbed into the wider culture.

In several Nigerian societies, traditional laws regulate who can play the drum, who may dance to a particular piece of music, who can watch a performance, and who may sing selected tunes. Additionally, the when and where of music-making are heavily controlled. Aluede (2013) explains that such social regulation is meant to contain possible abuse and misuse. Paradoxically, in places where strict rules govern music use, reckless adaptation of texts, rhythms, and melodies are tolerated to a dangerous degree.

Copyright gives creative artists control over their original work — it is the legal right a person has over the use and reproduction of their property. For copyright to apply, the work must be fixed in a tangible form from which other people can perceive it. A musical work might be fixed on tape or in sheet music. Lyrics without intelligible notation qualify as a literary work, but not as music. Fixation matters because unrecorded works are hard to prove in ownership disputes (Ekpo, 1994).

Piracy, simply put, is using copyrighted material without permission. Where there is no proper documentation, a work cannot technically be said to have been pirated. Still, musicians face rights violations and outright abuse on a daily basis. Aluede (2010) describes a particularly striking trend: polyglot gospel musicians who sing a tune in multiple languages. Over the last three decades, songs in English have been repackaged with Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo translations; some artists even use minority languages like Urhobo or Ijaw to render songs originally written in English. These polyglot performers reproduce already recorded works verbatim et literatim — using the same lyrics, instrumentation, and melodies — with the only innovation being an added language layer.

Today, any recorded music in Nigeria embarks on a swift, predictable journey. The diagram below traces the recording process and what happens afterwards.

Every recording embodies two kinds of copyright. Musical compositions generate revenue for songwriters, composers, and publishers. Sound recordings channel income to performers and the sound recording copyright owner — typically a record label.

The music industry includes all the companies and individuals who make money by creating and selling music. The network is vast: composers and performers; record labels, music publishers, producers, studios, engineers; booking agents, promoters, venue operators, and road crews; talent managers, business managers, and entertainment lawyers; broadcasters, journalists, educators, and instrument manufacturers. All of these players are interconnected, and so are the many forms of infringement that can emerge.

Several terms need clarification so that readers can follow the rest of this discussion:

1. Music law — the legal aspects of the music industry and related entertainment sectors, covering record labels, publishers, merchandisers, live events, and performers.
2. Copyright — a legal concept, enacted by most governments, that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights to its use and distribution, usually for a limited time.
3. Copyright infringement — using works protected by copyright without permission, violating rights such as reproduction, distribution, display, performance, or the creation of derivative works.
4. Online copyright infringement — digital income has grown so much that by 2012's first quarter it accounted for over half of all recorded music income for the first time.

Section 28(a) of the Nigerian Copyright Act provides that a performer's right is infringed by anyone who, without consent or written authorisation, records the whole or substantial part of a live performance. However, if consent is sought for research, private or domestic use, it cannot be unreasonably refused.

That growth is threatened because new digital services must compete with websites offering music illegally for free. Demand is high: seven million people in the UK admitted visiting sites with illegal content. Governments have tried to improve enforcement through measures like the Digital Economy Act, which targets peer-to-peer file sharing. Beyond legislation, the music industry actively works with advertising and payment sectors to cut off support for pirate sites.

Copyright laws and modern realities in Nigeria

Cecil-Turner (1941) defined ownership as the exercise of unlimited physical control over a thing. An analysis by the Institute for Policy Innovation calculated what global internet piracy costs the recording industry:

• $12.5 billion in economic losses every year
• 71,060 US jobs lost
• $2.7 billion in lost worker earnings
• $422 million in lost tax revenues
• $291 million in lost personal income tax
• $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes

America is far more organised economically than Nigeria. If a better-informed and more rigorously policed economy like America faces these challenges in music business, what must the situation be like in Nigeria? Consider one example: a former student of one of the lead authors recorded an album and sold it himself at local markets. One day he met an Igbo trader selling pirated copies of the very same album in the same market. He had the man arrested, but the offender paid the police to secure bail. Utterly disillusioned, the student could only let the matter drop. This story repeats countless times, always benefiting the fraudsters.

Allen and Cecily (2009) note that copyright protects not ideas or concepts but the expression of those ideas. It prevents unauthorised copying. When you load a CD into your computer and rip it, you are technically making a copy. So why do record labels seem relaxed about personal copies played on a different device? As long as the copy is not shared — and this has traditionally been treated as a private use — the industry has shown less concern. But in Nigeria's communal culture, sharing music through any channel aligns with deeply held values of collectivism and goodwill. That cherished mantra "there is joy in sharing" clashes directly with modern copyright enforcement.

The music industry is persistently devising fresh strategies to curb the challenges posed by online piracy. Recent legal victories have enabled the blocking of websites offering illicit content. The industry also closely tracks how illegal material appears in search engine rankings, concerned that pirated content sometimes outranks legitimate sources.

Examples of Online Copyright Infringement:

- You create an MP3 copy of a song because the CD you purchased explicitly allows it. However, you subsequently post that MP3 file on the internet via a file-sharing network, enabling millions of others to download it.

- Even if you do not illegally share recordings with others, you join a file-sharing network and download unauthorized copies of all the copyrighted music you desire for free from other members’ computers. - To access copyrighted music on other network members’ computers, you pay a fee to join a file-sharing service that lacks authorization to distribute or copy copyrighted music. You then download unauthorized copies of all the music you wish. - You transfer copyrighted music using an instant messaging service. - You use a computer with a CD burner to create copies of downloaded music onto writable CDs for all your friends. - You record music played at a media house as an advertisement copy using a digital recorder and share it with friends.

The flow diagram below illustrates how music can travel from one point, device, or location to another—across cities or nations—without authorization.

The Task before the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON)

Protecting creative artistic works is a formidable challenge. Such protection is essential; without it, artists are left empty-handed and deprived of the financial rewards due from their lifelong labor and craftsmanship. The Nigerian environment appears particularly unfavorable for artists, according to Okafor (2002:115):

The society under which the copyright law operates in Nigeria is under the strain of certain external and internal forces. First, the cultural base of the Nigerian society provides that a work of art or craft, in any form, may have its origin in an author, but is essentially communal in usage and eventual ownership. Under this system, different people in the society could introduce modifications and

adaptations, and sometimes, use the work in the manner not originally intended by its creator. Even where the work enjoys certain protection, provided by its intended ritual or ceremonial usage, certain variations, which do no harm to the original intentions, were permitted.

Further commenting on these challenges, he notes that the primary body responsible for guarding and enforcing copyright law in Nigeria is the Nigerian Copyright Commission. This commission maintains its national headquarters and zonal offices across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria—south-south, south-west, south-east, north-east, north-west, and north-central. Its supervising ministry is the Ministry of Culture and Tourism—a significant improvement from the days when copyright fell under the Ministry of Commerce, which was far removed from the productive and creative sectors of information, culture, and tourism. The Nigeria Police Force has been directed to establish anti-piracy desks at designated areas in their commands, and every state has an anti-piracy committee featuring artists, performers (mainly public performers), authors, and police members (Okafor, 2002:116).

A troubling fact remains that this committee has yet to be established. For about half a decade, COSON has struggled for recognition and an administrative framework, despite its legal recognition. More concerning is the litigation it faces with sister arms in the Nigerian music industry, which has hampered the execution of its otherwise commendable programs.

To develop a more pragmatic mechanism for protecting artworks should become everyone’s primary concern, regardless of race or location.