Nabilah Safira
TechInAfrica – A new policy on Intellectual Property (IP) is being worked on as revealed by the Managing Partner at Gee Law Firm, Lagos, Nosakhare Uwadiae at a webinar themed ‘‘Intellectual Property and Copyright Issues in the Advertising Industry, a collaboration between the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) and the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC)
Africa has to suffer from 287 million dollars lost annually due to IP theft, which alerts a critical point for the continent’s internet ecosystem.
Speaking on the webinar as keynote speaker, Mr. John Asein, the Director-General of NCC explains that a person or company hiring a designer, computer programmer, artist, or other independent contractors will own the work created under any trademark, patent, or copyright and that IP examples would include books, music, inventions, and more.
“We must address this problem head-on and that is a commitment from the NCC. That is why it can never be business as usual because the loss to piracy is in billions, lives are lost,” he adds.
While there is no confirmed time yet of when the policy taking account, Uwadiae ensures that all the ongoing efforts are going to pay off this time around and it will crystallize into a workable policy very soon.
