EMERGING ISSUES IN COPYRIGHT PROTECTION LAW FOR DIGITAL INNOVATIONS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Fast paced technological innovations and advancements in this twenty-first century  have had an enormous impact on the world’s legal systems because they disrupt traditional modes of protecting intellectual property, often times leaving  the  law  in  a  state  of  flux.  The  ever  changing  forms  of  innovations  such  as  computers;  which  includes palmtops  and  hi-tech  phones,  satellite  and  cable  receivers/signals,  facsimile  transmissions  and  the  perpetually growing  internet.  In  Nigeria,  the  Copyright  Act  purports  to  protect  intellectual  property  including  digital innovations,  notwithstanding  that  the  country  remains  one  of  the  largest  piracy  destinations  and  markets  in  the world. This article examines the Nigerian Copyright Act with the view to identifying the inadequacies which account for the inability of the Act to accord adequate protection to digital inventions in the country. The article also reveals the  legal  and  technology  deficits  which  have  made  it  possible  for  infringers  of  digital  inventions  to  assail  the technology  with  impunity,  and  therefore  make  it  impossible  for  our  Copyright  Act  to  live  up  to  its mandate.  The work  recommends  that  in  the  fight  against  piracy  and  copyright  infringements  of  digital  innovations,  pragmatic policy  measures should be adopted at the administrative, social, judicial and technological levels, to tame the tide of an otherwise purely socio-legal problem.