TALKING ABOUT COPYRIGHTS

What is Copyright?

Copyright is the exclusive right owned by the owner or author of a book or music album or works etc. to control the use of work created by him. It is also the right of property as recognized and sanctioned by positive law. An intangible incorporeal right granted by statues to the author or originator of certain literary or artistic productions, whereby he is invested for a limited period, with the sole and exclusive privilege of multiplying copies of the same publishing and selling them.

The copyright law confers on the owner, author or creator the right of ownership in what they have created. It therefore gives such creator the opportunity to benefit from his creation and also encourage him to create more.

Works eligible for Copyright:
1. Literary works: This include irrespective of literary quality of the following works or works similar thereto, novels stories, poetic works, plays, stage directions, film scenario, and broad-casting scripts; chorographic works; computer programmes, textbooks, treaties, histories, biographies, essays and articles; encyclopedia, dictionaries and anthologies; letters, report and memoranda; lectures. Addresses, and sermons; law reports, excluding decisions of courts; written tables or compilations.

2. Musical Works:
This includes any musical work, irrespective of musical quality and includes works composed for musical accomplishment.

3. Artistic Works:
This is also includes irrespective of artistic quality, any of the following works similar thereto, namely, paintings, drawings, etching, lithographs, woodcuts, engravings and prints, maps, plants and diagrams; works of sculpture; photographs not comprised in cinematography film, works of architecture in the form of building models; and works of artistic craftsmanship.

4. Cinematography Films:
This includes the first fixation of sequence of visual images capable of being shown as a moving picture and of being the subject of reproduction, and includes the recording of a sound tract associated with the cinematography film.

5. Sound Recording:
This is the first fixation of a sequence capable of being reproduced but does not include a sound track associated with cinematography film.

6. Broadcast:
This includes sound or television broadcast by wireless telegraphy or wire or both or by satellite or cable programmes and includes rebroadcasts.

It must be understood that as elaborate as copyright is it does not protect everything that one may want to protect. Such titles, Num de plum, Advertisements, ideas, obscene or blasphemous works, criticisms or review, Head note, a letter to the editor and public Jurist.

Generally an advertisement is entitled to copyright protection provided that the advertisement has a degree of originality. It can be copyrighted as a literary work or artistic works or as a combination of both. This type of copyright is vested in the advertiser or his agent.

Works out of Copyright Protection:
There is no copyright protection for a mere idea, no matter how noble the idea may be; it does not fall within the confines of the property protected by copyright. Before it can be protected, the idea must have been transformed into something which is more substantial or permanent than a mere idea. For instance the idea may be reduced into writing and it ay be recorded on tape. There will be copyright protection for any of the above examples but not an idea which is still in contemplation or at best a concept.

Copyright protection is not available for an idea because the substance that is being protected by the law is lacking in an idea or concept. Copyright law protects originality in a work but the originality required is that of skill and labor that has been invested in the work.

There is generally no copyright protection for obscene, libelous or blasphemous work. Understand that there is also no copyright protection in criticism or review. The copyright law regards as fair dealing the use of literary, musical or artistic works for the purpose of criticism or review, research or private use or reporting of current events.

However, it is required that there should be acknowledgement of the work and its authorship where the use is public. But if the work is incidentally included in a publication or broadcast, the acknowledgement will not be necessary.

Law reports, Decree constitutions and other law publications consist of head notes, footnotes, side notes etc. All these enjoy copyright protection because before they can be set in such a way, they require special and extra rigor, labor and skill.

Also, letter being sent to the editor of a newspaper, writer of the letter no longer has property in the letter; it automatically becomes the property of the newspaper therefore the writer cannot sue for copyright infringement. There is no copyright protection for public juries (the history of the day) also. They are historical events of the day and not the creation of a person. While there may be copyright for the style, manner and use of language or phrase in which a story is presented there is no copyright for the news element in a newspaper story, because the intention of the law is not to give an individual the exclusive right to any particular event/history of the day.

Requirements for Copyright:
Originality:
The decree of copyright is to effect that sufficient effort must have been expanded in making the work to give it an original character before copyright can subsist in a literary music or artistic work.

Copyright protection makes originality the bases for any copyright work. Meaning that the work must have come from the imagination of the author, with his own labor, skill to bring to bear the property to which copyright is sought. The work must not be an imitation of another work. The work must be an original in form and structure.

Conversion into a permanent form:
This states that the works for copyright must have been converted, transformed into something permanent or definite such that it can be perceived, reproduced or otherwise communicated by any means. This means that the work has advanced from the stage of ordinary idea to something ore realistic or tangible.

Who is qualified for Copyright Protection?
Copyright is conferred on any work eligible of which the author, or in the case of joint authorship, any of the author is at the time when the work is made, a qualified person; meaning that an individual is a citizen of, or under the laws of Nigeria.

In case of joint authorship, it will be sufficient if one of the authors is a citizen at the time when the work is made. The determinant for being eligible by an author is being a citizen of the state. Anyone who lives in the state is also eligible if he/she is domicile there

Who owns Copyright Protection?
The ownership of a literary, musical, or artistic work or a cinematography film is initially vested in the author.

An author is any person who originates, creates, invents or gives existence to a work. He/She is the owner of the copyright in the work he/she has authored.

The Book: The Book
From: Treasured1 Creative Ideas Int.
By: Salau O John