Vanuatu holds Copyright Workshop

The Vanuatu Intellectual Property Office (VIPO) conducted a workshop on International Copyright Treaties on Monday and Tuesday, 14 -15 May 2018 at Ramada Resort in Port Vila.

The Director of VIPO, Britten Yosef, says the workshop was held to discuss International Policy framework in regards to Copyright and related rights and see how Vanuatu can benefit from such regimes.

“We live in a global environment, in which technological innovations have enabled information to circulate around the globe within seconds. As such, content of any information can be available to anyone around the globe by instant access,” Yosef said.

“In Vanuatu, we have a large portion of the population is now on the internet. We use the internet for a lot of purposes to extract information and boost our knowledge on anything which is of interest to us.

“If you upload any music or any local video production into the web, you reach a global audience. Anyone can listen to your music or watch your video clips. The next question that needs to be ask is, do our local artist receive any royalties or benefits, when the content of the works is life stream via Youtube or Facebook and the like?

“The answer is no. Many times, we fail to read and understand the legal terms and conditions of an internet platform that we are using. You own all of the content and information you post on your facebook profile, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and video (“IP content”), Director Yosef continued.

“You might ignorantly or not be aware that, you specifically give the platform owner like Facebook, YouTube etc, the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: the grant of non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (“IP License”).

“To address this issue in the international arena, we will have to accede to some of the copyright internet treaties to provide us with legal avenues in which our local artist can gain some benefits. Our Parliament has passed the bill for the establishment of the Vanuatu Copyright Management Society. This will be the organization that will take charge in managing and distributing economic benefits to owners of creative works,” Mr. Yosef explained.

The workshop also touch on convention on Intellectual property rights of disable members of the society and how they can benefit if Vanuatu acceded to the Marrakesh Treaty which provide special intellectual property protection to the disable members of the society.

“As an island nation, we have been blessed with beautiful topical environment of which our cultures and traditions emerged from. That is our roots,” he said. “It was from this tropical cultural setting that, we get our inspirations from to create something. Our creation is seen through our songs, sand drawings, paints, music, expression of culture, curving, literature, films etc.

“We a unique in many ways. Our strength lies in our cultural diversity, it provides a favorable environment for arts and literatures. That is our strength as are nation. Our creative and cultural industries is still infant, and we want to develop such industries because it has the potential to occupy our people and enable them to participate meaningfully in their own creation as well as contribute to the national economy.

“We are mindful that with technology, information about our creative works is transmitted via cables around the globe, and there are duplications which raises issues of intellectual property of which there is a need to ascribe to any international legal instrument that is fitting to protect our local creations from unjust exploitation. That is the very reason why Vanuatu Intellectual Property Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization organized this workshop to explore the benefits of Vanuatu acceding to internet treaties with the intention of safeguarding and promoting the interest of our local artist.”

Participants from this workshop were members of the music federation, local theatre groups, local artist groups, Vanuatu society for disable people, Rights to Information desk, Telecom Regulator, OGIOC, Ministry of Justice Cyber-crime desk, disability desk, Depart of industry, representative of Vanuatu handicraft market, Vanuatu Chamber of Commerce, Vanuatu Bureau of Standards, Port Vila town council of chiefs, Vanuatu cultural centre, treaty desk in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Corporate service of the Ministry of Tourism, Trade, Industry, and Ni-Vanuatu Business.

This workshop was facilitated by Mr. Paola Lantrine, from the copyright law division, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), (a United Nation’s specialized agency based in Geneva, Switzerland).