OKAFOR’S Law: Two years after, Omoni Oboli wins copyright case

Two years after, Omoni Oboli wins the copyright infringement
case by Raconteur Productions on her Okafor’s Law movie.

The judgement passed by a Federal High Court in Lagos, on May
2nd, was in favour of the Nollywood actress, her Dioni Visions
production outfit as well as FilmOne distribution.

The plaintiff had said the defendants infringed on their
copyright which was assigned to them by the writer Jude Idada.

Justice Ibrahim Buba said the plaintiff failed to adduce
sufficient and credible evidence to prove authorship and ownership
of the screenplay and/or script of the feature film, Okafor’s Law,
cannot be vested with Copyright of the film.

However, owner of Raconteur Productions, Chioma Onyenwe, in a
Medium post, said her legal team “provided a copy of Jude’s
screenplay and his accompanying Canadian Guild of Writers copyright
registration dated January 2015 with an analysis of both
screenplays as well as the screenplay purchase agreement between
Raconteur Productions and Jude”.

Onyenwe, who said she had gone into distribution talks with
FilmOne, but the latter terminated the letter of intent which it
had sent Raconteur Productions. Later on, Onyenwe said she heard
FilmOne was in talks with Omoni on the said feature film.

“I am of the view that FilmOne felt that Omoni was a more
commercially viable producer and shared my screenplay that was in
their possession with her,” she said in her post.

Omoni, in her statement following the judgement, said that “the
evidence before the Court showed that the Plaintiff’s proposed
Movie Production arrangement did not materialize as the said
arrangement was in fact cancelled by FilmOne due to the Plaintiff’s
inability to comply with the conditions and production deadlines
specified by FilmOne.”

While Omoni applauded the judgement and the “court’s commitment
to do Justice without fear or favour,” Onyenwe described it as “a
grave miscarriage of justice and is indicative of the lack of
knowledge and apathy regarding Intellectual property and
Entertainment transactions in the Nigerian Judicial system.”

Onyenwe may be appealing to the court’s decision. In concluding
her post, she said: “This only reaffirms to me why this case is so
important and despite this setback, I will continue to fight until
justice is administered.”

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