For years on end, piracy, intellectual property scam has been a constant headache for creators in Nigeria. When their work is not being shared as cinema charity, it is being sampled without credit to them and the worst part is that, this can also come from their fellow creators.
Then, when comes the time to get Justice for these crimes, creators usually got discouraged for bothering to complain because of the meager sentence that the offenders would get. (A Nigerian court once ordered a payment of #10,400 as penalty for stealing somebody’s work.)
This had been the situation for creators since 2004, until the outgoing president of Nigeria, Muhammad Buhari, announced the repealing of that law from its former ensnarement, an English copyright law based on the close-fair act, to an open provision modelled after the fair use right in the U.S. Copyright Act.
This repealed copyright law will not only forewarn offenders but will also dispense harsher punishments with fines that will burn a hole in any their pockets.
According to The Cable: The principal objectives of the new law are to: protect the rights of authors and ensure just rewards and recognition for their intellectual efforts; provide appropriate limitations and exceptions to guarantee access to creative works; facilitate Nigeria’s compliance with obligations arising from relevant international copyright treaties and conventions; and enhance the capacity of the Nigerian Copyright Commission for effective regulation, administration, and enforcement.”
So for anyone who works in film or cinematography, art, literature writing, music, sound recording, what this means is that they now have more authority over their intellectual properties.
Congratulations to all creatives out there. We hope that this brings them the well-deserved boost that industry experts have predicted since this new development.
