Nigerian Movie Producer Drags DSTV To Court

   Cable Tv giant DSTV has been dragged to court by a Switzerland based Nigerian movie producer Joe Aihende.

  

Trouble started about four years ago when Joe Aihende and his company Motherland Ventures and General Services located at 58, Aerodrome Close, Off Ekewan Road, Benin City, Edo State also with a business office located at 29, Olufemi Street, Off Ogunlana Drive, Surulere, Lagos was approached with the intent of buying his movie titled “Check Point”. The plan then was for the producer to sell the broadcast right of his movie to DSTV, while they use it as content on their movie channels, amongst which is African Magic. 

However, trouble started when

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Joe was informed by the management of DSTV that the movie would be broken into parts one and two. According to a reliable source, Joe Aihende did not like this idea and so he changed the initial agreement of selling the movie and returned to his base in Zurich, Switzerland. But Joe was shocked when friends in the country informed him that his movie had actually been aired on African Magic, one of the channels of DSTV. Joe however, revealed that he was astonished when he contacted Multi Choice on the development and was informed that the movie had actually been sold to them by Joe’s duly authorized representatives one Toni Anih, working with the company name Africa Mega Entertainment and yet another guy, Andrew Ohirien Coker who actually sold the movie’s broadcasting right for five years. 

While the case is currently in court, DSTV is maintaining the stand that Anih, actually sold the movie to Multi Choice Nigeria Limited maintaining that if Joe had any problem he should sort it out with those he allegedly sold the movie to before relocating to his base. Trouble reportedly started on the 8th of September 2007, when DSTV aired  the movie “Check Point”, produced by Joe Aihende without his permission. 

An associate of the producer revealed that Joe Aihende decided to drag Multi Choice Nigeria to court over the infringement of his copy right in the movie Check Point, when he realized that all his anticipated earnings from the marketing of the movie had been lost. The producer is said to be suffering from emotional break down having obtained a huge loan from a bank in Zurich, Switzerlandto prosecute the movie. Joe Aihende is currently indebted to the tune of 50,000 Swiss Francs to the earlier stated bank, GE Money Bank at Zurich, which was meant for effectively promoting the movie. Till date, Joe is still indebted to the bank and does not see a way out of the dilemma. 

However, reacting to this development, via a legal document, DSTV revealed that they had negotiated and acquired the broadcast rights of over 6,000 films and other such contents in Nigeria and across Africa in the past and that they usually rely on a variety of documents when acquiring rights to films in Nigeria, including, but not limited to the censorship certificate or other documents from the National Censors Board, which has the name of the producer endorsed on it. In furtherance to their claims on the issue, DSTV revealed that it is a common thing to find producers relying on agents to collect monies on their behalf for the rights acquired regarding their content, which is typical of Joe Aihende’s case.