UAC building for its brands' future
This is only a short article, but it makes for a pleasant change to read something with a confident, upbeat tone to it after all the usual miserable features about counterfeits.
* local legalisation of foreign-originated documents is no longer required. This saves official fees ranging from LD25 to LD120 (around €20 - €80), depending on the country of origin.
* no longer is there any need for a revised and certified translation of such documents. This saves certifying fees of Euro 55 per document.
A press release from WIPO today announced approval of Director General Francis Gurry’s proposal for the new members of the Senior Management Team. The current members’ terms end on November 30th this year. The new terms will last until November of 2014.
The Management Team is comprised of four Deputy Director Generals and three Assistant Director Generals who help the Director General in managing WIPO. Two of the current team members are returning, including the only African member, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama of Nigeria. Mr. Onyeama is currently an Assistant Director General, but will serve his next term as a Deputy Director General. The other returning member is Ms. Binying Wang of China, also switching from Assistant to Deputy.
The complete list of new members and their positions is as follows:
Outgoing members include Philippe Petit of France, Narendra Sabharwal of India, Michael Keplinger of the United States and Ernesto Rubio of Uruguay.
Mark Schultz and Alec van Gelder (mentioned here, here and here for their work "Nashville in Africa") have written a piece for Ghana News highlighting Ghanaian musician/producer Victor Tieku and the Ghanaian music industry.
Victor Tieku is striving to be Ghana's version of Ralph Peer, the man who founded the music industry in Nashville, Tennessee. In fact, last year peermusic began collaborating with Tieku and his label, Kampsite Records. Part of Tieku's plan involves a new method of royalty collection. Rather than using the Copyright Society of Ghana, which is fraught with many of the same problems as other African collecting societies, artists can use Tieku's business as the intermediary for collecting royalties.
"He [Tieku] plans to set up a music publishing business that will promote and license music for radio and television, in advertisements, films, ringtones, and recordings by other musicians."
Schultz and van Gelder express a belief that this will benefit the Ghanaian industry. Collecting societies in Africa often developed from remnants of institutions left behind by colonial powers or in mimicking developed countries. This cart-before-the-horse scenario resulted in a situation in which countries have collecting societies but without the strong publishing company backbones needed to support the societies. Tieku is taking the opportunity provided by Ghana's new copyright law (Section 49) that allows private "collective administration societies" to create that strong backbone.
Schultz and van Gelder also discussed other areas where Ghana is making progress and where it still needs some work to legally support growing a successful music industry. The goods and bads are pretty much the usuals for Africa: popular music, new copyright law; lack of implementation of new law, poor enforcement, rampant piracy. And that overwhelming common good: a lot of potential for an amazing industry.
Years ago, when former President Obasanjo was in power, the Nigerian Copyright Commission moved from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to the Ministry of Justice. Though the move was ignored in many ways - newspaper articles still often discuss the Minster of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation when discussing NCC issues - it did produce some outcries and a court case.
The Nigeria General Discussion Blog brings us news that the Federal High Court has released its judgment in the case. It is unclear from the article whether the court dismissed the suit or found in favor of the defendants. Either way, the Performing and Mechanical Rights Society of Nigeria did not prevail in its constitutional challenge of the NCC's move.
Performing and Mechanical Rights Society of Nigeria brought a case challenging the President's ability to move the NCC from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to the Ministry of Justice. The problem, as PMRS saw it, was that the President acted unconstitutionally by ordering the move himself, without any approval from the legislative branch.
The court held that the move was not unconstitutional. Per Article 148(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria:
The President may, in his discretion, assign to the Vice-President or any Minister of the Government of the Federation responsibility for any business of the Government of the Federation, including the administration of any department of government.
For more details on the politics behind the case and other parties involved, see the Discussion Blog's full report.
"A gathering of senior policy makers and intellectual property (IP) administrators from 36 African countries meeting in Pretoria, South Africa on May 26 and 27, 2009, to examine the importance of IP as a catalyst for economic and commercial development, marked the launch of a Japanese-financed program to promote the use of IP in Africa and Least Developed Countries (LDCs).Afro Leo wonders, not for the first time, whether the expenditure involved in flying IP administrators, WIPO officials and national diplomats around the world and putting them up in comfy hotels is justifiable. Why not let these blameless souls communicate via teleconferencing -- a technology which has been working in a most satisfactory manner since the previous century -- so that the money saved might be better spent in investment in the IP infrastructure of those countries that need it most?
The event, organized by WIPO in cooperation with the governments of South Africa and Japan, is part of the WIPO-administered Japanese Funds-in-Trust (FIT) Program for Africa and LDCs. The two-day meeting provided an opportunity for participants to reflect on the range of policy options available to create an enabling environment for the effective use and management of IP assets.
IP experts from Japan, Malaysia, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and African Regional Intellectual Property Office (ARIPO), WIPO and the World Bank addressed a range of themes, including patent information as a tool for innovation; technology transfer; use of IP for business competitiveness; commercializing IP assets; value added services of IP offices; funding of scientific research and innovation; and IP development from a regional perspective.
Participants also discussed concrete proposals for future activities to be implemented within the framework of the FIT program and expressed appreciation for Japan’s generosity in establishing it.
...
Japan has supported a number of WIPO-administered projects through extra-budgetary funding since 1987. Through these channels, Japan shares its experience in the use of intellectual property for wealth creation, enhanced competitiveness and economic development".