COPYRIGHT AND NEIGHBORING RIGHTS UNDER THE NIGERIAN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW

Copyright protection is a crucial aspect of intellectual property, ensuring that no one reaps the fruits of another's labor without authorization. In this research, efforts have been made to appraise copyright and neighboring rights under the Nigerian intellectual property law. Flowing from the objective of this work, it has examined the concept and historical evolution of copyright and neighboring rights in Nigeria, the legal framework regulating copyright and neighboring and the adequacy or inadequacy of the existing legal framework on copyright and neighboring rights in Nigeria. Furthermore, this study was based on primary and secondary sources. The primary sources included the international /regional instruments, national and States statutes, covenant and government policies and decided cases. The secondary source of information included the textbooks, dictionaries, articles, encyclopedias, periodicals, newspaper, and opinion of writers which are the secondary sources of data. This paper found the protection of performers’ rights inadequate in the sense that the Act did not provide for new forms of exploitation made possible by advance technology and the internet. Furthermore, the Act did not provide for legal protection of performers’ of expressions of folklore, also the Act did not provide for moral rights of performers. The study concluded that the Nigerian Copyright Act 2022 addresses the challenges of performers' rights infringement, particularly in the face of open and sleuth technology. However, the Act retains provisions on folklore protection without reviewing it to address the intrusion of imported folklore on traditional culture. Future reviews or subsidiary legislation should strengthen these provisions to prevent the loss and disappearance of certain elements of folklore, especially in the face of modern communication technologies.