Multi-sided music platforms and the law: Copyright, Law and Policy in Africa
Routledge, 2020

Multi-Sided Music Platforms and the Law explores the legal and regulatory frameworks surrounding copyright protection, competition and privacy concerns arising from the way multi-sided platforms use copyright-protected content in digital advertising.
This book suggests how stakeholders in Africa, and their advisors, may ingenuously reform and apply various legal and regulatory frameworks to address these issues which arise from the manner in which multi-sided platforms use copyright-protected content in digital advertising. The book critically engages with the regulatory efforts in other jurisdictions, particularly the EU, with a view to bringing an African perspective to the debate and practice. It undertakes a consideration of this issue by asking how multi-sided platforms may be deployed in a manner that continues innovative uses of copyright content while protecting the economic freedom of African copyright owners as small businesses.
Providing the first pro-Africa approach to the regulation of multi-sided platforms, particularly with reference to music, this book focuses on key aspects of digital commercial activity and highlights the main challenges and opportunities for its regulation.
Reviews for Multi-sided music platforms and the law: Copyright, Law and Policy in Africa
- Professor Caroline Ncube (University of Cape Town) who wrote in the foreword: “The book is an important and timely contribution to the discussion of music platforms. It comes at a time when the global scholarly and legal practice communities are still coming to grips with the import of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market for these platforms. To my knowledge, this is the fist work that considers multi-sided platforms from the above perspectives under South African and Nigerian law. As such, Okorie has broken new ground and opened an important discussion”.
- Nora Ho Tu Nam (IPvocate Africa) who highlighted that: “This work is the first to address regulatory issues raised by the use of such platforms from an African perspective. The thorough analysis and the well-thought recommendations contained in this book make it an important addition to the library of policymakers and lawyers involved in the field of copyright, multi-sided platforms and digital commercial activities in Africa”.
- Professor Eleonora Rosati (Stockholm University, Sweden) who wrote that: “The book’s approach, whilst thorough and rigorous in the application of relevant research methods, is also very practical, offering valuable considerations for practitioners and litigants alike. This, in my view, is a very positive aspect of Okorie’s work, in that – often – literature on platform liability tends to focus on issues that, whilst important, are not always treated in a manner that is helpful to those providing legal advice and courts, which have to decide relevant cases”.
- Dr Desmond Oriakhogba (University of Benin) who wrote: “Presented in a simple, clear, coherent and well-structured manner, the book: Multi-sided Music Platforms and the Law: Copyright, Law and Policy in Africa, a ground-breaking work of scholarship from the African continent, unpacks the foregoing issues and proffers well-articulated regulatory and advisory directions for the regulation of multi-sided music platforms from the perspective of copyright, privacy and competition law in Nigeria and South Africa”.
- Professor Veit Erlmann (University of Texas at Austin), who noted: “Overall, the book is rigorously structured, cogently argued and brimming with detailed analyses of statutory provisions and leading cases in South Africa, Nigeria and the EU”.
- Professor Ayoyemi Lawal-Arowolo (Babcock University), who wrote: “The work is highly commended for the approach adopted in conducting a research which is regarded as useful to Africa…Overall, this book comprises brilliant chapters from the first to the last which are appropriately linked, making the work interesting and enlightening. The bibliography of literature on multi-sided music platforms and copyright law and other areas of law is useful to the African terrain. The work is essential reading for intellectual property scholars and policy makers, especially those with interest in copyright law and multi-sided music platforms”.