We held the IP Training on Saturday, 12th March at Nailab. This training was conducted by Ms. Liz Lenjo, who is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a partner at Kikao Law. She specializes in Intellectual Property, Sports, Entertainment and Media law.
During this training, Liz was to tackle Intellectual Property Rights, Libel and blogging. She started by defining Intellectual Property Law as the area of law that helps convert Intellectual Property Ideas into Assets.
The relevant regimes of IP were given as:
a)Copyright
b)Trademark
c)Trade Secrets
Terms and conditions are very important and bloggers were advised to include them in their blogs as they give leeway to dictate how content is used and grants legal backing in case of non-compliance.
IP is to be enforced in the following five steps:
1.Cease and desist
2.Issuance of Take-down notices
3.Demand letter
4.Mediation/Arbitration
5.Litigation
In most cases, the case does not go all the way to the 5th step, but that is only if the offending party is cooperative.
The training also touched on Article 33 of the Constitution of Kenya. According to the constitution, Freedom of Expression is not absolute. Its limitations include; hate speech, Incitement to violence, and Propaganda of war. It is good to bear in mind that Article 33 (3) states that in the exercise of Right of Freedom of Expression, every person shall respect the rights and reputations of others.
Defamation was defined to involve Slander or oral untruths and libel, which include published untruths, harmful statements to one’s reputation whether in print, broadcast, caricatures, radio or film pictures.
Bloggers were also cautioned about using images that do not belong to them without crediting the rightful sources.
These are some of the tweets that were sent out during the training under the hashtag #IPLawsKe
If you take photos of people, say at an event, with the intention of sharing, you need to get permission from the subjects #IPLawsKe
— Shiko-Msa (@Shiko_Msa) March 12, 2016
Kenyans get away with copyright infringements because the world views us as an irrelevant market. #iplawske
— Techsawa (@techsawa) March 12, 2016
You shouldn’t use an image if you cannot find the original source. Credit the original source. If you cannot find it, leave it! #IPLawsKe
— Renee Murrey (@TheReneeissance) March 12, 2016
There are no such things as pictures/images belonging to google. Those images on google belong to other people #IPLawsKe
— FemmeHub (@FemmeHub) March 12, 2016
“In a work for hire agreement, ensure in the IP clause you still own your Intellectual property. #IPLawsKe
— ? Love Child ? (@KishKontent) March 12, 2016
Don’t be in a hurry to sign contracts. Seek Professional advice to explore all commercial possibilities. #IPLawsKe
— Juliet Hephzibah (@juliejacqui1) March 12, 2016
@LizLenjo_Kags Thank you so much for enlightening us on the law…much appreciated your information learned a lot. @BAKE_ke #IPLawsKe
— Sheenas Kitchen (@sheenaskitchen) March 12, 2016