Music producer, Spiky, sues CAF over copyright issues

Ghanaian music producer Kwabena Ofei-Kwadey Nkrumah popularly known in showbiz circles as Spiky Beatz has sued the Confederation of African Football (CAF) over copyright issues.

According to the lawsuit which was filed at the Commercial Division of the Accra High Court, Spiky Beatz claims CAF used his beat, titled “Akomfo Anokye” to promote the 2018 edition of the CAF Awards without his permission.

YEN.com.gh reports that “Spiky deems CAF to have plagiarised, appropriated and infringed on the producer’s copyright when they failed to acknowledge him as the owner.”

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“The Plaintiff asserts that, the Defendants’ conduct was in blatant disrespect and disregard for Plaintiff’s proprietary rights in his music and a flagrant and brazen infringement of Plaintiff’s copyright which said acts of Defendants, has caused Plaintiff loss of substantial revenue from any licensing of his music for commercial use,” the document reads.

Spiky through his suit is asking the court to issue:

“A declaration that by boldly using Plaintiff’s “SPIKY – OKOMFO ANOKYE” beat/instrumental music for commercial purposes without Plaintiff’s prior consent, Defendant has flagrantly and brazenly infringed on Plaintiff’s Copyright.”

Spiky is also asking CAF to “to account for profit for the commercial use of Plaintiff’s copyrighted work” and also “general damages for the infringement of the Plaintiffs’ copyright by the unauthorized commercial use of the Plaintiff’s “SPIKY – OKOMFO ANOKYE” beat/instrumental music and failure to name Plaintiff as the Copyright owner on the infringing materials and the abuse of Plaintiff’s human rights.”

Meanwhile, CAF has responded to Spiky’s suit denying his claim.

“…Every allegation contained in the Plaintiff’s statement of claim as if same were set out in extenso and denied seriatim,” CAF states.

According to CAF, they used Spiky’s beat because it was uploaded on social media and available for free, however, they pulled it down 24 hours later after their attention was drawn to it.

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As the awards were a non-profit event, CAF further denies using the music for commercial reasons and claims that the plaintiff is not entitled to any of the relief requested in his lawsuit.

This is the third year running since Spiky called out CAF over the alleged copyright infringement.

Back in 2018, Spiky had taken to Twitter to call out CAF for using his creative property without permission.