1. Creativity, Copyrights &
Commerce
Being Excerpts From a Presentation at the
Creative Entrepreneurs Association of Nigeria
“Creative Sessions”
in Conjunction with the
British Council
Prepared by
Ese Oraka (Partner, Adelphi)
Twitter.com/@eseoraka
Twitter.com/@Adelphi_ip
Facebook.com/AdelphiAfrica
Insightsbyadelphi.blogspot.com
info@adelphionline.com
www.adelphionline.com

2. Summary:
• The Creative Entrepreneurs Association usually hosts “Creative
Sessions” for individuals in the creative sector with the aim of
discussing issues which affect them.
• At one of the sessions held at the British Council, I was invited to talk
on issues related to copyrights and the creative industry.
• Considering that there were all kinds of creatives there including
fashion designers, music artistes, writers, publishers and animators,
the issues raised and the scope of the discussions were diverse.
• I touched on issues ranging from creativity, to copyrights, culture
and commerce.
• This presentation provides a summary of my thoughts on the
various issues. Enjoy.

3. On the Role of Creativity in Nigerian
Society:
• There has been significant growth in Nigeria’s Creative Sector
in the past 10 years. This is immediately apparent in the
Music, Film & Fashion Industries; advertising has been
witnessing a new wave of growth with the advent of the New
Generation Banks and Telecoms Companies. The Software
sector is also witnessing steady and significant surges. The
contribution of our creative industry to Export is increasing.
• On a global scale, advancements in Technology have been
driven by a large dose of creativity and innovation. Creatives
need to see themselves not as an option but as a pre-condition
to Socio-Economic growth and National
Development.

4. On Copyrights:
• Copyrights generally relate to questions of who has the right
to Copy and control the distribution of original works.
Copyrights protects a literary, musical, dramatic,
choreographic, pictoral or graphic, audiovisual, or architectural
work, or a sound recording, from being reproduced
without permission from the copyright owner.
• The material to be copyrighted must be in a fixed form,
anything that is not unrecorded is not Copyrightable.
Copyrights do not protect ideas, procedures, processes, and
systems, methods of operation, concepts, principles, or
discoveries; thus a dance move cannot be copyrighted
(because its not fixed), though a video of it could be.

5. On Copyrights Infringements:
• Infringements of copyrights would include,
copying or reproducing an original work without
permission; creating of a new work directly
derived from the original work, for example by
translating to another language or performing or
displaying the work in public.

6. On Defenses against Infringement:
• The primary defense against a claim of infringement of
Copyrights is “Fair Use”. Under the doctrine of fair use, a
person is privileged to use Copyrighted material in a
reasonable manner that is to say for limited purposes
such as research, criticism, comment, teaching,
scholarship and news reporting.

7. On the requirements of Copyrights in
Nigeria:
• Copyright Law and Practice is governed in Nigeria by the Copyright
Act 1988 (amended in 1992 and 1999).The Copyright Act established
the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) which is a Regulatory
Agency charged with the responsibility of overseeing copyright
issues. Nigeria is also signatory to some international copyright
treaties such as The Berne Convention 1886 and the Universal
Copyright Convention 1952.
• To copyright an original work in Nigeria, one will pay a statutory fee
in favor of the NCC to a designated bank. One would need to fill a
form including the nature of the work, year of creation, name of
creator and name of the owner of the copyright among other
details. The form will be submitted to the Commission along with a
copy or copies of the work for processing. If the application is
successful the Commission shall present the applicant with a
“Notification of Copyright” to the work.

8. On the impact of Digital Media on
Copyrights:
• In my personal opinion, one of the greatest inventions before the internet was the
Printing Press; it provided the opportunity for information to be disseminated in ways
that had never been imagined before. It obviously contributed to the development of
Copyrights Laws, because like we said earlier, copyrights relate to who has the right to
control the copying and distribution of creative work.
• Digital technology coupled with the Internet, has provided the opportunity to copy
and disseminate in ways that the inventors of the printing press and their iterators
could never have imagined. It has disrupted business models. People can now self-publish
their books, create their music and album art and distribute same worldwide,
simply using a computer connected to the internet. This provides opportunities as well
as threats.
• In reality technology has become so creative that even the creative industry and the
laws which regulate it are trying to catch up. The more up-to-date jurisdictions have
made some recent attempts at catching up; there was the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act of 1998 and the more recent US proposed bills, SOPA (Stop Online
Piracy Act) & PIPA (Protect IP Act) which if passed will have further disruptive impact
on Copyrights in the internet age.

9. On Copyrights law in relation to
current realities:
• While our current Copyright Laws are not without its
merits, they have been rendered limited in the light of
Digital Technology, the industry is turning on its head,
new business models and channels are the norm.
• There is a clear and present need for us to bring the
Nigerian Copyrights Laws in line with current realities
particularly with the growth of new media, mobile
technology and access to the internet.

10. On the Cultural Peculiarities of
Nigeria:
• In evolving a copyrights regime for Nigeria, I believe
that we need to understand our cultural peculiarities.
Piracy is pervasive in Nigeria; one of the main reasons
is the fact that many people are not even aware that
they are infringing copyrights. Wide spread awareness
must be created as an integral part of evolving the law.
• There is also a tendency for Copyright holders in
Nigeria to sleep on their rights rather than enforce
copyrights through litigation; which has further impact
on how much local precedent we have for Copyrights
cases.

11. On emerging issues in Copyrights
Law:
• The Nigerian Copyrights Commission is currently
undertaking a review of the Copyrights Act. In
the light of this, they have prepared a draft bill
titled “A BILL FOR AN ACT TO AMEND THE
COPYRIGHT ACT CAP C28 LAWS OF THE
FEDERATION OF NIGERIA 2004 TO PROVIDE FOR
BETTER PROTECTION OF COPYRIGHT IN THE
DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT”

12. On key revisions in the current draft
bill:
Some key areas of revision in the current draft bill relate to
things such as:
• Public Domain in the Internet Age- Section 6,
Subsections 4&5;
• Circumvention of Technological Devices-Section 21;
• Graduated Penalties for Infringement- Section 18 and
• Copyright Registration Processes- Section 14

13. On if upcoming artistes should
copyright their works since
unauthorized copying and
distribution could help promote
them:
• It is important that artistes protect their
Intellectual Property, regardless of whether or
not they are new artistes. Even if they are
going to wait till they are commercial
successes to enforce their rights, they should,
at least, have reserved the right to do so.

14. On how animated works may be
copyrighted:
• Animation is an emerging sub sector of the Creative
Industry within Nigeria. It is not growing as fast as I
would like, even though there is a lot of opportunity. In
general animations are protected under the general
copyrights of the works in which they feature.
• The real challenge comes when the character assumes
a life of its own, independent of the story which
originally featured the character. In this instance we
would need to go beyond Copyrights to other forms
of Intellectual Property, particularly trademarks.

15. On the need to balance Creativity,
Culture and the Commercialization of
Copyrights:
• Creativity thrives on itself; it requires access to previously created
works and high levels of collaboration to so thrive. Some have
argued that Copyrights Laws as evolved stifle creativity because they
create Monopolies of Copyrights which do not allow for further
creativity.
• In my opinion, we must see Creativity not as just providing
commercial, but also cultural value and the cultural value will only
lead to more creativity which will lead to more commercial value and
so on and so forth. It’s a delicate dance between the owners and the
users. As stakeholders in the creative economy we must constantly
seek to find a balance between the Commercial and Cultural values
of our creative works.

16. Thank you 
For further inquiries, please contact
Ese Oraka (Partner, Adelphi)
Twitter.com/@eseoraka
Twitter.com/@Adelphi_ip
Facebook.com/AdelphiAfrica
Insightsbyadelphi.blogspot.com
info@adelphionline.com
www.adelphionline.com