2020: Nigeria’s progress on copyright reform
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic which effectively put much of life on hold, Nigeria enjoyed an extremely productive 2020 with respect to copyright law reforms and court decisions.
In January, the World Intellectual Property Office’s (WIPO) Nigeria Office (WNO) was established in Abuja to promote awareness raising, training, and capacity-building in the field of IP. According to WIPO: “WNO strives to provide an excellent, trusted, and responsive institutional sub-Saharan presence for WIPO in Nigeria, which adds clear value, efficiency, and effectiveness to the organisation’s programme delivery, provides timely responses to inquiries and offers support to the organisation’s cooperation and services in Nigeria.”
WNO is part of a network of WIPO external offices and, together with an office in Algeria, is among the first such offices in Africa. The office was officially opened for operations on January 22, 2020.
Law and regulations highlights
WIPO’s Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances (Beijing Treaty) adopted on June 24, 2012 finally entered into force on April 28, 2020. The treaty deals with the IP rights of performers in audiovisual performances and grants moral and economic rights to performers, particularly: (i) the right of reproduction; (ii) the right of distribution; (iii) the right of rental; and (iv) the right of making available.
The treaty must now be transposed into countries’ national laws. The “Beijing Treaty in Africa” series tracks the implementation of the treaty across Africa. Even though Nigeria has not yet implemented the agreement in its national laws, the Nigerian Copyright Commission is committed to reevaluating the draft of the Copyright Bill of 2015 so that it incorporates the Treaty.
On an additional note, the executive secretary of the Lagos State Film and Video Censors Board (LFVCB) intended to introduce a 5 percent tax on audio and visual content produced, sold, distributed, marketed, exhibited, streamed, downloaded, and shared across all physical and digital platforms in Lagos State. The 5 percent tax on digital platforms was intended to affect digital platforms such as Netflix and IrokoTV, but it was not implemented.
