What is the standard act to borrowing ideas, or titles from other people works for usage in whatever medium, if you ask me, this situation between Chinua Achebe and 50 cent over the use by the latter of the title “THINGS FALL APART” for his latest film, bears a lot that need be learnt by all of us in the art of creativity, in this part of the globe.
All works of creativity cannot just be lashed upon and used without respect whatsoever for the copyright owners, writing or seeking their approval and meeting all the necessary obligation therein agreed upon. Ours is a society where a lot of people just out rightly steal and appropriate other people work as their own. As we can see, out there people know what they are doing, as indicated by 50 cent attempt to procure the permission of Chinua Achebe before using it.
Achebe has however remain his principle self in refusing 50 cent the use of his title, and I must commend this spirit and attitude and lend it much to the rest of us. This is not to say that we should deny others the use of our ideas, or work, Achebe is damn too intelligent and people oriented to insinuate the above. It is not impossible that he is telling us that everything in life is not for sale. The collective heritage of a people, be it history, culture, etc in whatever form is not and cannot be made into a private property. That Chinua Achebe must go to the extent of denying himself a huge sum of $1million dollars to bring this education to us is instructive enough for us to learn. Do we need be reminded that Okonkwo sacrificed himself rather than suffer the humiliation of being conquered culturally and economically, where is this spirit of resistance against the desperate desire by a crop neo-colonized African ruling elites to return us all into second slavery.
Achebe is right to protect for all of us, the sacredness of the story in the text “THINGS FALL APART”. This is not oblivious of the fact that the title of the book is in itself directly lifted from the Irish poet W.B. Yeats. This one book that tells us how we as Africans have come to be where we are today. A book that has been most helpful in helping us as Blacks in Diaspora to appreciate and celebrate the level of organization, institutional uprightness in resolving crisis, a high sense of gender equality that would no doubt by now have been imp[roved upon by , if not for the violent overthrow by our way of life by the imperialist.
Again too for someone, who now lives in the US, there is the need to safeguard that title from being raped and integrated into the pop culture of gangster violence, which is a recurring theme both in Hollywood and in the sub-black movie industry in the US. This should not be seen as a pre-judgement given the fact one is yet to see this new film by 50 cent, to determine how fitting the title he sought for it would have been the best for it. Achebe is a father of the whole of the Art, and no father would turn down a younger one, if he approaches him the right way, discusses with him the intention, not just fling the money at him, people deserve to be respected. I think we should all be happy that Achebe is one of us.
I should also say that Nollyhood must learn a great deal from this example, a lot of script writers and film directors just impose titles on films without any care for the fact that they are infringing on the intellectual property of writers and others, in so many cases the films themselves are a direct replication of existing stories that already exist in more than one form, with a intolerable sense of arrogance that they are doing an original story. Adaptation is allowed, and must be acknowledged, one can only hope that this exchange between 50 cent and the Chinua Achebe, would enrich us all to a greater awareness of the sense in which we cannot appropriate other people work or ideas without seeking to procure the permission of their owners.
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