Urbane Entertainment and three other
applicants have dragged Nile Breweries to
the High court over the authorship of the
music video award script titled 'Club
Music Video Awards'.
The other three applicants are Brian
Banya, Sylvester Lalum and Peter
Katonene. Through their lawyers,
Karuhanga, Tabaro and Associates,
Urbane Entertainment claim that the
music video awards organized and
sponsored by Nile Breweries on Friday
were their idea, which was 'irregularly
stolen' from them.
The applicants further claim that they
shared the idea with Nile Breweries for
funding. However, Nile Breweries, without
permission, decided to implement the
idea as its own.
"The respondent's infringement of our
copyright has denied us the chance to
commercially exploit this copyright, and
further has exposed us to potential
lawsuits as we had already entered into
service agreements with various service
providers such as Fenon Events. Yet the
respondent has already reaped from the
infringement and is adamant about
accounting to us the proceeds from the
exploitation of our work, "reads their
plaint.
In his affidavit, Brian Banya claims that in
January 2010, he and other applicants
came up with a Television production for
music Video Awards to be sponsored by
Nile Breweries brand, Club beer. Banya
affirms that from the interaction with Nile
Breweries, the company accepted to join
them and through its conduct, they were
led to believe that they would finance the
production as a sponsor.
He adds that following the sharing of vital
information, budgets and plans, Nile
Breweries further asked them to change
the name of the show and adopt the
name Club Music video Award instead of
Uganda/Urbane Video Award.
Banya contends that they changed the
name after they were made to believe, by
Nile Breweries, that it would finance the
venture. They want court to award them
compensation for copyright infringement
and proceeds from Friday's video awards
event.
Nile denies:
In response, Nile Breweries said the
claims were false allegations intended to
either frustrate the awards event or extort
money. Through Kampala Associated
Advocates (KAA), Nile Breweries explained
that it received a proposal concept for
music video awards from Urbane, but
rejected it for failure to meet the required
standards.
"As you might be aware, the legislation on
copyrights does not accord protection to
concepts, and the said concept has been
in the public domain, both in Uganda and
other jurisdictions. Therefore, your clients
[Urbane] can't purport to have reserved
their right to intellectual property," reads
Nile Breweries response.
Nile Breweries further avers that it
organized its own music video awards
event, based on international standards.
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