Copyright

We live in the digital age where most advertising is now done through social media and influencers. Product advertisements have transitioned from TV channels to influencers promoting them on social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and others. The difference now is that advertising is often accompanied by product reviews. Influencers test the products and then share their opinions about them.

On November 29, the Parliament of East Timor approved the country's first Code of Copyright and Related Rights, intended to protect the creation, production and commercialization of literary, scientific and artistic works and their respective authors.

This law, which will come into force 180 days after its publication, proves to be an essential regulatory basis for the recognition of national innovation and culture, rewarding its authors and thus stimulating the creation of new intellectual assets in the most diverse areas of expression.

This article serves the purpose of educating creatives on the importance of copyright laws in Nigeria. It also provides insight into the major aspects of copyrights, its protection, and their implication on creatives. 

It is worthy of note that the principal law that governs copyrights in Nigeria is the Copyright Act LFN 2004, and the government agency that is responsible for the regulation and administration of copyright in Nigeria is the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC). 

Organized by the Pharmaceutical Trade Marks Group, PTMG Conferences bring together IP and Pharmaceutical professionals and cover a wide range of topics regarding trademarks in the pharmaceutical industry and other related subjects.

This year, Inventa proudly sponsors the PTMG Autumn Conference “PTMG on the road again - Trademarks Back to the Future”, held in the hometown of Inventa's headquarters, Lisbon.

Tiago Reis Nobre and Vitor Palmela Fidalgo continue to follow the event closely, which also marks the 100th Annual PTMG Conference.

Approved by the Republic Assembly in March and published in the Diário Oficial in June, Decree No. 9/2022 comes into force on 26th September 2022. The new decree revokes Decree No. 4/2001 and updates the issue of copyright and neighbouring rights in Mozambique. 

According to article 9 of the new law, copyright belongs to the intellectual creator of the work and is recognised regardless of registration or any other formality, with the exception of some cases specified in the law, namely title of undisclosed work, title of periodical publication, literary or artistic name.

The worldwide success of African music hits can lead to mixed feelings: happiness over its long-deserved recognition, but also concern that the artists will not get their dues.

By early 2019, amapiano, a style of house music that emerged in South Africa in 2012, had taken over the radio and clubs of South African townships and made stars of artists such as DJ Stokie, Junior Taurus, MFR Souls, Mr JazziQ and Josiah De Disciple, and Kabza De Small.

In relation to the 50th anniversary of Inventa International, we have been given the challenge to analyze certain intellectual property data over the past 50 years on the African continent.

As it is impossible to cover a panoramic view of the various events, we chose just a few topics we found interesting for this minor-scale study. At the outset, it seems important for us to outline a short introduction about the African continent and the protection of industrial property in the countries of which it is made up.

NFTs (nonfungible tokens) are the hot topic of 2021 and will possibly remain so throughout this decade, due to their technical properties.

Understood as one of the generators of digital technical scarcity due to their nonfungible, NFTs are digital certificates or digital authenticity seals that grant ownership of an asset represented as an NFT verifiable via blockchain entry.

Copyright refers to the rights that creators have over their literary and artistic works and protects the creators against third parties wishing to take ownership of their work to use it in a different way from the one they proposed originally without their authorisation. This protection, which is embodied in the exclusive right of economic exploitation of the holders of copyright and related rights in relation to their creations, allows the creators to be fairly rewarded for their work.

Whenever reference is made to a work of art named “The Thinker” in Angola, most people will think of the statuette “The Chokwe Thinker” (“O Pensador”).

The history of “O Pensador”, also known as “Samanhonga” or “Kuku”, goes back to 1932, when the Swiss painter and ethnologist Théodore Delachaux found the statuette in a “divination basket” (a basket containing many small objects used for the diviner to made prophecies at request of his clients) during an expedition to Angola. It is a wooden figurine, representing an elder, woman or man, in a position of deep meditation.