Copyright Law In Nigeria: An Overview The 9th edition of Black Law Dictionary defined Copyright as a right granted to the author or originator of certain literary or artistic productions, whereby the creator is invested, for a limited period, with the sole and exclusive privilege of multiplying copies of the literary or artistic works and publishing or selling them. Copyright law can be traced to English Statute of Anne, Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Berne Convention) ,Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations, WIPO Copyright Treaty, Universal Copyright Convention etc. These conventions set the minimum standards of protection of Copyright which each signatory country then implements within the bounds of it’s own copyright law. Copyright Act Chapter C28 LFN 2004 (Copyright Act) serve as the law that governs everything relating to copyright in Nigeria. Copyright Act permits the holder of a copyrighted work to reproduce the work in any material form, publish y work, perform the work in public, produce, reproduce, perform or publish any translation of the work, make any adaptation of the work. What then does Copyright protect? Or What then is a Copyrighted work? Section 1 Copyright Act provided for the works eligible to be protected by the Copyright Act. Those works include: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) Literary Works Musical Works Artistic Works Cinematograph Works Sound Recording ; and Broadcasts. Copyright protection for all these works arises automatically and does not require registration. Even if your works fall under any of these categories, the Copyright Act also provide that there must be originality in your work and also your work must be in an accessible material form. Originality in the work simply means that the author did not copy work from anybody and the work was his idea that he put in material form. There are instances where one gets idea for a particular subject from another person, but in as much as the other person doesn’t have such ideas out in material form and the person who he told about his idea put it in material form. The person who has it in material form has copyright in the work. A very good example is, a student has copyright in his exam script. The student only got the ideas from his lecturers explanation and put them down in his own words, therefore he has copyright in the script. A lecturer dictating note for his students has copyright in that note since he has prepared the note (material form) but a student who jots down point and forms note from the lecturers explanation has copyright in his jottings. How long does copyright protection last? Copyright Act First Schedule provides for the duration of copyright in a work. 1) Literary, Musical and Artistic Works have copyright protection subsisting in them for the lifetime of the author of the work and seventy years after the end of the year in which the author dies. 2) Cinematograph films & Photographs, Sound Recordings and Broadcasts all have copyright subsisting in them for lifetime of the author and fifty years after the end of the year in which the work was published or the recording was first made or the broadcasting first took place. To every general rule, there is always an exception. The Copyright Act made provision for the doctrine of Fair Use which serve as a defense in a copyright infringement case. Provided that the copyright of the author was infringed upon for the purpose of criticism, reviews, reporting news, parody, satire or research study then the defense of Fair Use is applicable. Author: Ayomide Rotifa Email: rotifaayomide@gmail.com
