The matter of protection of intellectual property is for some reason still taken very light around the Africana continent. It might seem that because of the low level of industrialization and innovation, most of the ordinary citizen might lack awareness and understanding of intellectual property. That said however, should not undermine the fact that Africa is the next big innovation frontier and therefore, proper attention out to be given to the area of intellectual property protection.
For creatives in the literary arts sector, the conversation is much more highlighted because on most literary works, the copyright details are well outlined. In other areas however, the matter of who owns the copyright or the creative work is often overlooked. Recently, a very important conversation was held as part of an online discussion and workshop by Mdundo in which one of the panelist was able to plainly articulate the grave need for all creatives to protect their work in this digital age where sharing information and even images and other audio visual material happens in a split second across the world.
In Kenya, the Kenya Copyright board is mandated with the role of ensuring those that need to copyright their work are able to do so and also be the authority in disputes arising from copyright infringement where the agency is the custodian of the copyright records. As creators and innovators continue to embrace the essential need of copy right protection, KECOBO has also stepped up to meet this need by digitizing the process of registering a copyright, where you can now do it online and a few elaborate steps and also acquire your copyright certificate once your request is fully processed by the Kenya Copyright Board online on the portal available on https://copyright.go.ke/
The ease with which therefore, one can register their copyright should be a motivation for writers, singers, musicians, fine artists and more not only for the monetary interest or aspect tagged on to it but also from the need to push our Kenyan arts and creative sector further ahead. For digital platforms such as youtube which have been heavily relied upon by Kenyan youtubers, the platform offers an opportunity to raise a copyright claim against any content that has been posted on their platform. To raise the complaint, all that’s required is signing to your account and select the copyright claim tag on the settings usually on the left side on the account settings menu.
It is however, imperative nothing that copyright along might not be sufficient in some cases and is also complimented by a trademark registration which is also under a different government agency. While copy right registration is quite straight forward and free on the online portal, trademark registration is rigorous and takes more time. But in the grand scheme of things, the benefits of registering a copyright in Kenya far outweighs the demerits and therefore, all creatives are urged to pursue the important matter of safeguarding their intellectual property by registering for copyrights online.
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