Tobias Sylvester
Nigerian singer, Ajibola Olumuyiwa Danladi, popularly known as Danny Young has filed a N200 million lawsuit against Tiwa Savage and Mavin Records for copyright infringement.
Danny Young is pursuing his claims that Tiwa Savage’s ‘One’ contains uncleared musical components of his 2009 single, Oju Ti Won.
Earlier in January, YouTube took down the video for Tiwa Savage’s song, ‘One’ following accusations of copyright theft levied against her by Danny Young.
However, YouTube restored back the video on its streaming platform after unfounded copyright claim because the allegations could not be proven.
Now, Danny Young has taken the case further with a lawsuit filed against her at the Federal High Court, Lagos, dated February 13, 2019.
This was made known by Danny Young on his Instagram page with the caption stating he was forced to take legal action against his colleague because he was snubbed after reaching out to her.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bug5-5pg8YZ/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_medium=loading
He wrote:
”Tiwa! I know pple love u! Even me… BUT I still have to sue u bcos u stole my sh*t! a simple dialogue would av solved this but u prefer it this way. Now we will be in court discussing some 200,000,000 Damages.”
In a press release by the law firm representing him, Creative Legal and signed by its Principal Attorney, Justin Ige, it stated the reason why the decision was made:
“Piracy is bad enough, but it is perhaps worse when creative people appear to completely disrespect the intellectual property rights of fellow creatives. Such conduct should not be without due consequences”
“A lay man may not understand what we are fighting for as it is more technical than just the lyrics.
“Nigeria is a place where writers do not get credits from the artiste they wrote songs for because the artiste wants to get all the glory alone. Producers also do not know that they have a right to royalties even after being paid for the beat.
“If I contribute one word to your composition, I automatically have a right to credits as one of the writers. This is a world standard and anything less is unacceptable especially when coming from an artiste that has international exposure.”
Since the allegations were initially made, Tiwa Savage has refused to respond to it in any terms.
Check out the videos by both artists below:
