Some Worrisome Issues Surrounding the Ambit of the Copyright and Neighboring Rights Law of Ethiopia: A Comparative Legal Analysis

Abstract

In 2004, Ethiopia proclaimed the Copyright and Neighboring Rights
Protection Proclamation, which is still operational, to give adequate
safeguards to copyright and neighboring rights in the country. To this
end, the law made several commendable departures as compared to
the provisions of the 1960 Civil Code of Ethiopia (which were meant
to regulate the rights of authors of artistic and literary works). One of
the conspicuous improvements the Copyright Proclamation made is
determining its scope of application (defining the ambit of the law),
since doing so is instrumental for the proper implementation of the
law which in turn helps to furnish proper protection to the rights of
authors and owners of neighboring rights recognized under the law.
Nonetheless, a close examination of the of the relevant provisions of
the law under consideration reveals that there are certain critical
problems in relation to its scope of application which may
overshadow the apt enforcement of the law. Hence, this author feels
that it is time to analyze the problems and suggest relevant remedies
that may be utilized by the Ethiopian legislature in the course of
amending the law. This piece is aimed at making a thorough analysis
of the provisions of the Copyright Law germane to the agenda under discussion, and forwarding possible recommendations to the problems
so identified in the course of this research.