Cosoma trains stakeholders in copyright law
Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) is running a series of workshops for different office bearers in strategic organisations and departments to familiarise them with the Copyright Act.
The first such workshop brought together the police and some officials from the Judiciary and the Department of Culture in the Ministry of Civic Education, Culture and Community Education.
According to Cosoma, contents of the Act, which was passed by Parliament in May this year, needs to be simplified and explained to the public for better understanding.
Cosoma executive director Dora Makwinja said in an interview on the opening of a two-day national workshop on creation of awareness on intellectual property rights that officials involved in enforcement of the Act needed to be enlightened on the new law.
She said: “We want them to fully understand what the law says so that they make decisions from a well-informed point of view. For every law or policy, Implementation is key and needs proper planning.
“This is the beginning of a series of workshops that we have organised with all stakeholders critical to the execution of the new legislation. More broadly, this Creation of Awareness on Intellectual Property Rights workshop is aimed at establishing a public-private partnership towards fighting piracy.”
She said Juerg Herren from Swiss organisation STOP PIRACY shared experiences regarding how strong partnership of this nature could contribute towards minimising levels of piracy and counterfeit products in a country such as Malawi.
Minister of Civic Education, Culture and Community Development, Patricia Kaliati, said intellectual property provides a system for rewarding creativity and innovation.
She said: “It is a fundamental human aspiration for one to be rewarded for their creativity. Therefore, the intellectual property system seeks to ensure that creators and innovators are rewarded accordingly by users of their creativity.
The government of South Korea through the World Intellectual Property Organisation provided financial support for the workshop as part of a Memorandum of Understanding Cosoma signed with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea in February 2015.
Before the passing of the Act, Makwinja told Intellectual Property Watch that the revised law took long because it sought to incorporate emerging technological issues affecting issues of copyright. n
