THE CONCEPT OF ‘ORIGINALITY’ UNDER THE NIGERIAN COPYRIGHT LAW AND LITERAL DEFINITION OF ‘ORIGINAL’: AN OVERVIEW

Abstract

Copyright as an Intellectual Property protects not just the creations and expressions of mind related to original Literary, Dramatic, Musical and Artistic works but also audio visuals and SoundRecordings. It is used to ascribe ownership and control of the rights to the use and distribution of certain works of creative expression, including, but not limited to, books, video, motion picturesand computer programs. Historically, Copyright law was enacted to balance the desire of culturesto use and reuse creative works, which gave rise to the concept of "derivative work", against therights of authors of art, literature, music and the like to monetize their work by controlling who can make and sell copies of the work. In a nutshell, copyrights only protect works which are ascribed the status of “Original work”. The term ‘originality’ or ‘original work’ under the copyrightsis often confused and alluded to ‘novelty’ and as such, to most, any intellectual work which is notnew is liable for an action for copyright infringement. The objective of this paper is to provide better understanding of the concept of Originality as a requirement in copyright protection in Nigeria. To better understand the concept, this paper adopted a theoretical framework by lookingat other literature on the subject as basis for our findings and recommendations. Our findings reveal that the main reason for this confusion is that there is no express provision under the Actwhich defined the definition of the concept Originality as such, recourse is often had to Judicial definition of the concept, which sadly, might not be known to the ‘Ordinary man’ in the eyes of the law. It is therefore our recommendation that the Copyrights Act should be amended to accommodate the meaning of the ‘Originality’ or ‘Original Work’ as protected by the Act.