Home Entertainment Entertainers to get royalties for life- AGN President
Entertainment - October 13, 2018

Entertainers to get royalties for life- AGN President

Emeka Rollas and colleagues.

The national President of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Mr Emeka Rollas Ejezie, has called on entertainers to invest in the block-chain revolution to empower and reward creativity, thereby saying no to exploitation by pay TV stations who rob actors of their royalties.

Mr Ejezie made the call during a meeting with stakeholders of the industry, at Virginrose Resort, Victoria Island, Lagos, to introduce the block-chain technology.

“Nigeria is the only country where actors do not receive royalties. Just recently we received Andrew Prodger, CEO of British Equity Collecting Society (BECS), whose purpose of visit was to assist Nigerian actors get remuneration for their creativity and intellectual property, with the support of the Spanish CMO for actors. They are looking at helping us overcome our challenges in all ways possible.

“An actor is not just someone who featured in over 2,000 movies yet don’t have a home or anything to show for it. We must know that we begin to key in with other global participators in the industry to know how far we can go. We have here presidents of the Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Directors Guild of Nigeria, Actors Union, Marketers, etc.

“AGN is introducing this into the entertainment industry. It’s a process! We will eventually look into the block-chain technology, which is the innovation of the whole works today. This promises to do just three things:

Firstly, giving us opportunity to get money when our work has been aired, you get this money directly. You no longer look for any pay TV stations to pay you; because at that level when the company would have developed the royalty token, you will be able to access whatever you want s to access.

Secondly, actors, producers, creative designers will have to be paid through this royalty token.

And thirdly, plans are ongoing to ensure that when entertainers visit places such as hotels, shopping malls, marts, etc., one will be able to use the royalty token to get discounts, because you have the wallet being developed for you.  And this is for a life time, not paying you for a year or two and after that you no longer have rights. “

Stressing the importance of the initiative, which he said is open for investment as it is designed to drive it as entertainers, the AGN boss added: “We don’t want people to use us to drive their products. We want to drive what concerns us, using us to drive it. We want to open it to investors who want to be shareholders of blocknollytv. At the end if the day, we’ll have advertisers and global investors in this block chain technology. Akon, a top musician, will soon launch something like this in his country. This block-chain is diverted through crypto currency, which is the next currency. That’s what we are talking about.”

“I want to assure you that from our stable as AGN, we are convinced that in no time we will begin to capture our royalties, residuals, even from big pay TV stations in Nigeria that feels they can’t pay us royalties. Already, WIPO is beginning to differentiate between those rights. Telling us that the producers have rights, actors have their rights, and all of that are enshrined globally. So when you go to sell your film this time around, you can only sell the producers’ right, but the actors’ creative rights remain with them. This is so because when you go to court, you will have to be protected globally on anything, especially when your film is licensed in Nigeria and within a month of production it’s showing all over the words, thereby impoverishing us. “

On his part, the CEO/Founder, blocknolly.tv, Mr Lawrence Onumara, said in his speech that, the event provided him an opportunity to address what he has been nurturing for a while and his intention to give back to the industry he so much believe in.

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