Copyright registration in Cameroon. Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in west-central Africa. Cameroon has had a decade of strong economic performance, with GDP growing at an average of 4% per year. Cameroon is part of the Bank of Central African States (of which it is the dominant economy), the Customs and Economic Union of Central Africa (UDEAC), and the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). Accordingly, many businesses want to enter this market and one of the most important preparations a business needs to take before expanding to this country is to learn the procedure of copyright registration in Cameroon.
Copyright in Cameroon
Unlike other intellectual property rights such as trademarks, patents, industrial designs, plant varieties, etc., copyright does not need to be registered for protection but will be automatically protected from the time the works are created in a certain material form, regardless of content, quality, form, medium, language, published or unpublished, registered or unregistered.
Accordingly, whether registered or not, the copyright to the work will still be protected. However, copyright registration is still advised because early registration will give the author/owner of the work many advantages in the event of a dispute.
When unauthorized use of work occurs around the world, the owner of a work who has registered copyright in advance will not have to waste time and complicate matters with proving himself/herself to be the legitimate owner of the work.
Thereby, in order to avoid passivity, the owner of the work should make a copyright registration to protect their rights and interests when there is an infringement.
Copyright registration in Cameroon
Cameroon is a member country of The Berne Convention for Copyright since 1964.
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (the Berne Convention) is an international agreement governing copyright. The agreement was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland, in 1886.
As Cameroon is a contracting party of the Berne Convention, any work originating in Cameroon will be given the same copyright protection in each of the Berne Convention member countries. The original from Cameroon can be that the work is made and published for the first time in this country or if the author of the work is of Cameroon ethnicity.
While in most countries, copyright protection is automatic as soon as the work existed in material form, copyright registration in Cameroon is critical in order for the copyright owner to obtain evidence of copyright.
Evidence of copyright is extremely important even when copyright is obtained automatically.
When registering, the work – the subject matter of the application gets a date and a time stamp recorded, as well as information about the work and proof of work concept and development. This provides unambiguous proof of authorship and ownership that can’t be denied.
Proof of copyright is essential in an age when the publishing, dissemination, and theft of material is extremely easy with the exposure of the Internet.
If copyright registration is not made, copyright owners will lose a significantly big amount of money and time attempting to fight copyright issues and prove ownership of the original work.
In some cases, they might not win as the burden of legal fees overwhelm them. There might be other reasons such as the pressure from the big organizations and the fact of time-consuming when pursuing the fight.
If the copyright owner has already registered for copyright protection to the IP office, they would get a strong foundation and legal claims even if those situations happen, increasing their chance of winning.
Documents for copyright registration in Cameroon
To register for copyright protection in Cameroon, the author of the work needs to prepare the following documents:
- Declaration of copyright registration;
- Two copies of copyrighted work;
- Documents proving the right to apply;
- Written consent of co-authors, if the work has co-authors;
- Written consent of the co-owners, if the copyright is jointly owned;
- Notarized identity card of the author or owner of the work;
- Power of Attorney, if the applicant is an authorized person;
- Notarized copy of the company’s business registration certificate (if the owner is a company).
The copyright law of Cameroon
Cameroon has become a member of the Bangui Agreement since 8 February 1982 and the World Trade Organization since 13 December 1995.
As of 2018 the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an agency of the United Nations, listed Law No. 2000/011 of December 19, 2000, on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights as the main copyright law enacted by the legislature of Cameroon. WIPO holds the text of this law in their WIPO Lex database.
Cameroon is also a member of the Universal Copyright Convention since 1973 and the TRIPS Agreement since 1995, the MVT Treaty since 1973.
You can see a list of Cameroon IP firms here.