Nigerian creatives need to tap into goldmine of intellectual property rights

BY STANLEY ALIEKE

As an intellectual property lawyer, I can spend the whole day talking about intellectual property rights; their benefits, the rights, and damages.

Although it is not yet fully developed in Nigeria or tapped into by Nigerian creatives, but those in creative spaces, content creators, etc, should know that once they put an original material or content out there to the public, they are deemed to have the legal right to such contents or materials.

Just like a physical property owner has the right to his tangible or physical property, a content owner also has the right to his content even though such contents are intangible, but in law, they are deemed to be properties belonging to the creator or curator, hence the reason why it is called “intellectual property”.

An intellectual property right is a right for the owner of the intellectual property to have and enjoy his property and be devoid of infringement by outsiders and theft. If anybody infringes on that right, there will be legal consequences against that person. Any infringement on that, no matter how minute, calls for legal action.

Anybody who makes use of such content without the express consent or authorisation of the owner will be said to have stolen it, hence, the act will be referred to as intellectual property theft.

These rights can only be enjoyed by a creative who has taken the extra step to legally reserve those rights for himself by registering those contents in Nigeria with the federal ministry of trade and investments through trademarks, patents, copyrights, etc.

When these contents have been fully registered, it saves the rightful owner from controversies as to who is the lawful owner of the content. Just like a landed property owner is expected to register the property with the land registry to fully protect his rights, so also an intellectual property owner is legally expected to register his or her intellectual properties with the ministry of trade and investments to fully protect his rights and shield it from theft and infringements.

Nigerian entertainers and those in the creative space need to know that intellectual property is a gold mine. It is you getting paid for your creativity and they all should take extra steps in laying legal claims to their creativities by duly registering it; trademarking, copyrighting, or patenting.

Stanley Alieke is a lawyer based in Abuja. He can be reached via [email protected]