© Act in Kenya grants © to the © owners. It subsists for the life of the owner plus 50 years. In case of sound records , they compute 50 years after the year in which the first recording was made. The masalah with duration is that most computer programs have a very short life span and there is no need of protecting them for 50 years plus. Anonymous Works: © subsists for the duration starting from the year of publication which is strictly 50 years but if the author decides to disclose his identity before he dies , then it will persist for his lifetime and then another 50 years after the author’s death. These are called pseudononymous works. 50 years is a short time and there are 2 dimensional characters like Mickey Mouse and the Looney Tunes and their time was about to expire in the 2004 , what the industry leaders did was to lobby Congress to extend the duration of copyright another 20 years which now made it the life of the author plus 70 years. Music produced in US prior to 1976 Act is already in public domain.
It does not matter what kind of work it is , it may be a fantastic paper for the law journal but the subject matter depends on whether it falls on the category of literary , artistic or musical works.
Copyright Act 2001 Section 22.(1) Subject to this section , the following works shall be eligible for copyright
| (a) | literary works; |
| (b) | musical works; |
| (c) | artistic works; |
| (d) | audio-visual works; |
| (e) | sound recordings; and |
| (f) | broadcasts. |
A broadcast shall not be eligible for copyright until it has been broadcast.
(3) A literary , musical or artistic work shall not be eligible for copyright unless
(a) sufficient effort has been expended on making the work to give it an original character; and
(b) the work has been written down , recorded or otherwise reduced to material form.
(4) A work shall not be ineligible for copyright by reason only that the making of the work , or the doing of any act in relation to the work , involved an infringement of copyright in some other work.
Related rights for a long time were not included in copyright because it was argued they lacked creativity. Broadcasting Houses only get fringe rights for the investment they have made. Broadcasting Stations have copyright to broadcast their own programs. They only have primary rights in those programs that they have themselves produced like ‘Papa Shirandula” Citizen