WE GO FURTHER WHEN WE GO TOGETHER

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight – from whichever corner of our beautiful globe that this message gets to you.

This isn’t going to be one of our lengthy blogs, or maybe it will; we haven’t quite decided yet. As you can tell, it has been a while since we did this so we’re a lil rusty, but of importance is that we are back – and with amazing news too!

We are pleased to announce that sometime in February, 2022, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Kenya Copyright Board (also known as KECOBO)

The contents of this MOU you ask? We’ll gladly explain.

In recognizing that the Kenya Copyright Board is a State Corporation under the Office of the Attorney General & the Department of Justice established by section 3 of the Copyright Act 2001 and mandated with the administration and enforcement of copyright and related rights, we felt that they would be the ideal partner to involve every time we wanted to conduct our trainings as ArtLawKenya; more specifically on the topic of copyright and related rights.

The mandate of the Board is however much broader than this and does not just end at copyright sensitization, the board is also mandated to:

Enlighten and inform the public on matters related to copyright;
License and supervise the activities of collective management societies such as the likes of MCSK and PRISK; and,
Maintain an effective databank on authors and their works.

(to learn more about KECOBO please visit https://copyright.go.ke/)

We have therefore gotten into this partnership to collaborate on matters training as well as policy discussions and participation.

How then, will this translate for you, a creative that is a part of the creative economy?

Let’s start at the beginning by introducing you to copyright and why it is important for you as a creative.

Copyright is the protection of law extended towards creative expressions of ideas. In Kenya, our copyright laws protect six different categories of works – more specifically:

Literary works;
Artistic works;
Musical works;
Sound recordings;
Audio-visual works; and,
Broadcasts

If you create any of the above-listed works, then your work is entitled to copyright protection – automatically. Of course, the bounds of these categories are constantly being pushed – but that’s for another article.

Now, as a creative, you deal mostly in creative products, right? Your music, your art, your TikTok videos, your Instagram reels, your short films, your illustrations, your design – the list is endless. You are therefore a manufacturing plant and without you, your work cannot be consumed by your clients or the public at large. What therefore is the significance of copyright to your work?

If understood well, you can leverage your copyright to create income through:

Assigning your copyright i.e. selling it for value
Licensing your copyright i.e. giving a third party the permission to use your work – again, for value, or,
Collecting royalties i.e. payments, every time your work is used, reproduced, distributed or publicly displayed.

Why? Copyright is valuable, it is an asset, and it will almost always appreciate in value – like land.

Have you ever wondered why artists’ works appreciate in value after they pass? It is because their works now become ‘limited editions’. The manufacturing plant can no longer manufacture the creative product. Morbid example I know, but I hope you understand what we’re trying to get at.

To give an example for context – think of the long- standing case of Katy Perry’s ‘Dark Horse’ Katy Perry was sued for a $2.8 M payout by a Christian rapper who claimed she stole his music to make the single. The first court ruled in favour of the rapper. A subsequent court overturned the first court’s verdict and the Court of Appeal later upheld the same verdict. As it stands now, she no longer has to make any payments to the rapper for the similarities between the two songs. (Read more here https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-60705977)

A figure of that amount i.e. $2.8 M could have been based on a number of things including the revenues that Dark Horse generated, the cost of producing the song and other variables.

The idea here is that copyrighted works hold value.

Now back to our collaboration with KECOBO.

We, as ArtLawKenya, are in the habit of hosting training and workshops for creatives. What better partner to have therefore, than the body entrusted by the State to handle all matters copyright?

We therefore urge you to follow our socials to make sure you stay informed of any upcoming trainings we may be having as a representative from the Board shall definitely be present – unless forced by extrinsic circumstances beyond any of our controls.

On our part, we are bursting with excitement at the possibilities that a partnership like this could have for our creative economy. For example, we recently were invited by the Board, Waithumbi Ngurumi & Co. Advocates and AVAC (a visual artists collective and welfare organization – learn more here – https://avac.co.ke/), to take part in a Legal Aid clinic held at the Kuona Artists Collective.