US “fair use” clause has been adopted to assist Nigerian courts in determining whether a given unauthorized use of a work protected by copyright would qualify as “fair dealing”. Unlike the US “fair use” clause, there are no consumptive uses that are listed as permissible purposes.
New legal remedies are introduced to assist rights holders with the enforcement of their rights in the online environment, some of which may be relied on to compel Internet Service Providers to block user access to infringing content. This is an important development in the fight against content piracy, which has been a major problem since the dawn of the digital age, especially for Nigeria’s music and film and television production industries.
The Act also protects expressions of folklore, which include folklore, poetry, folk songs and dances, folk arts, drawings, carvings, sculptures, costumes and other works or imitations thereof. Any party who wishes to make commercial use of expressions of folklore would first need to obtain permission from the relevant indigenous community concerned, and/or the Nigerian Copyright Commission. A failure to do so could expose the user to criminal sanctions.
