Legalize Your Craft | Workshop Recap

Another day, another copycat. Whether we care to admit it, copying in fashion is common place and the fine line between imitation and inspiration is becoming thinner and thinner. Plagiarism is an issue for the global industry but within Africa’s fashion industry its now an epidemic due to the lack of protective laws and regulations for designers and creatives. It seems like one can only rely on social media to name and shame perpetrators these days.

One Can Steal Ideas But No One Can Steal Execution or Passion – Tim Ferris

We definitely look forward to a more robust system to protect intellectual property in the apparel and creative sector, until then we had IP Law expert Angela Adebayo, CEO Silvax Legal/ Inventa give a workshop legal protection for fashion entrepreneurs and creatives.
Fashion IP Law Angela Adebayo

Angela led a very heated and interactive workshop, sharing her knowledge and raising awareness on not just startup legal requirements and trademarking but on how creatives can better protect their work including copyright protection for designers. We also had fashion designer Ejiro Amos Tafiri passionately share her experience with copycats. Ejiro also expressed that this issue is further fuelled by irresponsible journalism within Nigeria’s fashion industry.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

Fashion Illustrators + Graphic Designers
Under law, fashion illustrators and graphic designer working under a fashion brand/house have full copyright to their designs, this means the sketches/drawings created by an illustrator can be reused by them without any permission from their employers. So make sure you have the necessary agreements and clauses in place when hiring and/or contracting an illustrator or graphic designer.

Photographers
Photographers actually retain the full copyright to an image regardless of whether you paid them or not. When contracting its good practice to state and agree with the photographer on how and where the images will be used and distributed.

Fashion IP Law Wana SamboYasmin Bisola Folawiyo, The Assembly Fashion IP Law Angela Adebayo

Before you think about copycats, what have you put in place to protect yourself? – Angela Adebayo 

Photo Credit: Leke Alabi-Isama for The Assembly 

Further Reading:

The Menance of Intellectual property theft in Nigeria 

Why African innovators must protect their intellectual property?

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Feel free to share your thoughts and if you have any further questions about this topic below.