Following Kiss Daniel’s recent legal tussle with his former record Label, G-Worldwide Entertainment, JOAN OMIONAWELE reached out to AKINYEMI AYINOLUWA , an Entertainment Lawyer for a break down of the statement and counter statement between Kiss Daniel and G-Worldwide Entertainment.
Press Statements
Explaining the part of G-Worldwide’s statement which reads that Kiss Daniel is not allowed to perform the songs released in the New Era Album, or any other song released under the copyright of the Record Label, the Entertainment Lawyer said.
“There is a press statement by Kiss Daniel saying the court didn’t give any injunction, but I am also hearing that there was indeed a court injunction from G-Worldwide. But by what insiders are saying is, anything done outside G-Worldwide is where the problem is, especially with the booking of shows. We are in December and musicians get a lot of engagements, so they want to route all the bookings and don’t want to loose out financially on Kiss Daniel.”
On Kiss Daniel going to court first
“It doesn’t mean! That he ran to court first is because he knew he did something wrong. It is possible that he needed the court to make certain announcements and adjustments because he terminated a relationship. Maybe he just needed the courts to clear him on certain issues, which is why he went to court first”.
On the issue with Kiss Daniel not maintaining his name after the contract expired
“It is obvious that from inception, Kiss Daniel didn’t have the right legal advisers, so he doesn’t have much leverage in that context, he is not to blame because at his level five years ago, one was young, and just chasing his dreams, so one might not have seen the full picture or be able to afford a good lawyer to advise him. You might just go to an estate lawyer or a criminal lawyer or any lawyer that does not understand the business of entertainment, but I think at that point in time, he didn’t do his homework to understand the conversation to even negotiate anything, that is why he is stuck now.
The issue with the name is in two parts and there are different sides to the argument. They were calling him Kiss and he became popular with the name, but if he had a lawyer from inception, there will not be this kind of issues. The other argument is that G-worldwide is saying they made the name Kiss Daniel a brand, they invested in the name, they made it a force to reckon with, they made it commercially viable. The name Kiss Daniel is a trademark which can be used to sell products and services, so they went a step further to trademark the name.”
On Kiss Daniel been refrained from performing all the songs from the New Era Album
“If there is an injunction that says he should maintain the status quo, this means that all the materials that were produced under that copyright, when the relationship was existing, must be maintained. So anything that was produced under that contract is the property of the Record label. But when you are done with the contract, you still have interests, even after a contract expires.
Because one left a record label does not mean one cannot perform a song, that means the musician’s career will be erased, so does it mean that older musicians cannot perform songs which they released in the 80’s? they wrote these songs so they can still perform their songs, but the claim G-worldwide is making is that in the interim, nobody should perform their songs or pay for the performance of their songs without their permission. This means that no one should take bookings for the performance of their materials which they are not sure they would get paid for.
Thus Kiss Daniel can only be successful with the legal process if he has a good lawyer. I believe he is famous and comfortable, and has enough to employ the services of a good lawyer.”