Africa-Press – Lesotho. The major burden towards the full protection of Intellectual Property in Lesotho is the old laws that no longer fully encompass the modern day systems.
This is according to Mrs ‘Makhukhumala Kama, Intellectual property council in the Registrar Office (RGO) under the Ministry of Law and constitutional affairs.
The RGO in collaboration with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held a copyright activity meant to asses copyright needs. The activity took place from the 29th October to the 31st.
According to Kama, the purpose of the study was to engage copyright stakeholders with a view of strengthening copyright administration in Lesotho and discuss implementation of the Marrakesh treaty.
This is a treaty for visually impaired and print disabled persons. Lesotho adopted The Marrakesh treaty in Lesotho in July 2018. Under this treaty she said books can be translated into Audios or be written in braille for the blind to access the content.
She said this will be done lawfully and with the consultation and consent of the authors. The constitution of Lesotho still needs revision to accommodate the Marrakesh treaty.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Informative newspaper, Kama highlighted that even though the government of Lesotho is working towards an efficient administration of copyright and protection of intellectual property, the law is still lagging behind.
She said the copyrights law in the constitution of Lesotho takes back to 1989 after which a lot has changed. She made an example with the distribution medium of music which changed from cassettes to Compact Disks (CD), and lately the internet.
Therefore she said the law should be amended to accommodate new systems so that musicians can also get royalties for the use of their content on the internet.
Despite the copyrights law being in place, she mentioned that for a long time now, music and videos have been used on radio stations and television without awarding relevant brands royalties.
This she attributed to the absence of a collecting body which she said has recently been appointed legally and will start collecting royalties very soon.
Meanwhile, WIPO Senior Program Officer Mrs Sonia Cruickshank mentioned that Intellectual Property (IP) is protected under different categories of ownership; Patents, Utility or Petty/Design Patents, Industrial Designs, Trademarks, Copyright.
These properties are protected differently to each other in terms of duration among other provisions. She made an example with a patent (PA), which she described as an exclusive right granted for an invention.
This is recognized as a product or process that provides new effective workflow means. It is protected for 20 years in most jurisdictions like the United States of America, and is Nonrenewable.
Intellectual property protection is likely to help Lesotho’s job creation challenges in various ways. These include authors and musicians amongst others.
