By
Anote Ajeluorou
The
global fight against copyright infringement and the need to pay for use of rights
took centre stage last week, when stakeholders from the global copyright
community gathered in Lagos to raise awareness on Collective Management of
Copyright. Participants came from Europe, America and several African countries
to rob minds on the imperatives of protecting intellectual property rights,
which are endangered all over the world, but especially in Africa.
The international rights’ organisations that
attended the seminar included International Federation of Reproductive Rights
Organisation (IFRRO), Belgium, Rights Clearance Centre, U.S., Copyrights
Licensing Agency, United Kingdom, World Intellectual Property Organisation
(WIPO), Africa Reproductive Intellectual Property Organisations (ARIPO) and
hosted by Nigeria Copyright Commission, (NCC) and Reproductive Rights Society
of Nigeria (Repronig), led by its chairman and secretary, Prof. Olu Obafemi and
Mr. Jare Ajayi respectively.
At its media parley, Obafemi said the seminar
presented a historic moment, as it was the first time his organisation gained
the confidence of international bodies to visit Nigeria to deliberate on
copyright issues and chart a better future for everyone in the copyright
system. For them at Repronig, Obefemi stated that it was a privilege to host
the seminar.
“We’ve been looking at ways of minimising
activities of people who want to deny copyright owners of reward for creators
of copyright materials,” he said. “Creators of works need to be rewarded in a
world that is growing in knowledge”.
Also in welcoming the global bodies, Obafemi
said his organization, Repronig, “is charged with the responsibility of
ensuring that those who legally reproduce copyrighted works in Nigeria pay
tokens for doing so. Its mandate covers works produced by academic and
non-academic writers, scholars, visual arts, translators, journalists and
photographers.
“We are all engaged in intellectual work in
one form or another. We are all aware of the damage, which actions such as
plagiarism, piracy and unauthorized reproduction of literary or visual works
does. It has ruined a lot of artists just as it serves as disservice to
creativity. Repronig, in league with the Nigerian Copyright Commission, has the
mandate of exposing the evils inherent in unauthorized reproduction of
intellectual property and in ensuring that authors of intellectual works get
compensated for their efforts”.
Obafemi also condemned all forms of terrorism
and threats to human life in all parts of the work, saying it had direct
consequences on creators of intellectual works, as everyone was a potential or
actual creator of intellectual property, and added, “We place a lot of premium
on creators of intellectual works. It is in this respect that news of
increasing threats to human life and physical attacks in different parts of the
world gives us a lot of concern.
“Every individual is an intellectual rights
owner potentially or in actuality. We are calling on politicians and
governments in various countries where this is happening to urgently find a
lasting solution to it just as we appeal to the conscience of evil perpetrators
to desist”.
On his part, NCC boss, Mr. Afam Ezekude, who
was represented by Chris Nwocha, raised the hope of stakeholders in Nigeria’s
creative sector of the possibility of licensing yet another Collective
Management Organisation (CMO) apart from Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON)
to accommodate creators of works not represented by the latter. This may appear
an indirect way of the commission recanting its earlier and alleged ill-conceived
stand of licensing a monopolistic CMO in a democratic setting that encourages
trade liberation.
According to Ezekude, “Apart from enhancing
our oversight functions on collective management organisations, we are also
encouraging right owners who are otherwise not represented in the existing
collective management framework to work towards establishing new collective
management organisations in separate fields of collections. I wish to mention
the recent establishment of the Audiovisual Rights Society by stakeholders in
the Nigerian film industry. The commission has closely monitored the process of
this group and is satisfied with its broad-based composition, which reflects
the interests of the majority of stakeholders in that industry”.
He expressed hope that the seminar would
“provide new insights in collective management and assist authors and managers
of collective management organisations to refocus on their on mandates and come
up with more pragmatic measures of addressing their operational challenges”.
Chief Executive Officer of IFRRO, Mr. Olav
Stokkmo, said his organisation was a network for protecting rights worldwide
and represented in 140 countries. He stated that last year alone, it raked in
$1.2 billion, which it disbursed to rights owners, noting, “We defend copyright
owners and journalists. Intellectual right is human rights; it’s human rights
to protect the rights of authors, composers and creators of intellectual
property. The issue is to make the difference between what is legal and what is
not. The world is about sharing, but it has to be done legally”.
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