Copyright management industry in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Copyright management under the law in Nigeria is an area of law that has not yet been fully explored. This is not because the law is not known, but because people are so reluctant to deal with the law and also the awareness has not so much been canvassed. Copyright faced lots of problems in Nigeria and these problems are causing losses of income to musicians, authors, actors, publishers, amongst others. However, in order to understand the reasons behind this development, where the country was in terms of music in the 80’s was explored and where things started to take a downward turn in the early 90’s to the point where things are beginning to shape up in terms of rights management and intellectual property protection. The study established that even-though copyright in the music industry in Nigeria is gradually taking its pride of place as more and more artistes are getting royalties and compensation for the use of their work, a sound copyright legal framework is still required as this is the cornerstone of creativity and innovation. Secondary data sources such as journal articles, documented interviews and so on were used for this study. The study recommended that government intervention in the areas of funding and enactment of enabling laws are required; and on the part of other stakeholders in the creative industry, they must always be prepared for the occurrences of change and be dynamic on the issues of copyright.