BASIC FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT COPYRIGHT

Bola, a budding writer has just completed the manuscripts of her new novel, The Love Lane. Among the myriad of challenges she is facing in pushing her work to fame and fortune, Bola fears that her work can be ‘stolen’ and worries about what she can do to check that. She shared her fears with her childhood friend Chioma who advised her to ‘get the copyright’ for her work.

Lasleek on the other hand has been pursuing a successful career in music. One day while hanging out with his buddy, Tom, also an aspiring musician, Lasleek shared with him a piece of music he had playing in his head, certain it will be his launch pad to stardom. Tom fell in love with the song immediately and urged him. One weekend while listening to his favourite radio station, Lasleek heard the unmistakable voice of his best friend Tom performing the same song which he shared with him. Heartbroken, Lasleek headed straightaway to his lawyer’s house, confident he had a case against his longtime friend Tom but was in for a shocker when he found out he had none, because he had no proof of ownership of the said piece of music. 

The ownership of copyright is often taken lightly and misunderstood. Many people like Bola and Chioma are under the false impression that they need to ‘get the copyright’ for a written work before they can get it published. Some even go the whole length trying to ‘apply for a copyright’. Others like Lasleek think that they own the copyright to ideas floating in their heads.

What exactly is copyright and what qualifies a work for copyright protection?

Copyright is not a nicely designed © you just pay to get stamped on any piece of work created by you. Copyright is your right; it is your monopoly right as a creator of a work which prevents others from exploiting such work without your authorization, for a period of time. And the good news is that it comes at no cost, at least in Nigeria and many other countries around the world.

Just because someone has a © boldly printed on his piece of work, doesn’t mean he/she owns the copyrights in that work. Here are basic facts that guarantee the ownership of copyrights in a given piece of work.

•  Firstly, it is important to understand that you cannot ‘copyright’ an idea. Copyright protects the expression of an idea and not the idea. In Bola’s case, her copyright exists in the manuscripts of The Love Lane and not the concept that played in her head before documentation

• To enjoy copyright protection, your piece of work must be original; originality in the expression of an idea even though the idea itself may resemble an existing one.

•  Copyright begins immediately an artistic or literary work is created and put in a fixed form. There are NO requirements for a work to be registered to enjoy copyright protection in Nigeria. It is not enough to have an idea floating in one’s head; it must be fixed in some kind of way. By just being recorded on his mobile phone, Lasleek’s piece of work would have enjoyed as much copyright protection as an already published music album.

It is important to note that purchasing the original copy of a piece work does not confer the copyrights in that work to the buyer.

Copyright law maybe complicated, but it is important for all creators and users of such works to understand the requirements of the Copyright Act and abide thereby.