The Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) has warned Kenyans against participating in the Cadbury In Our Own words poetry and storytelling competition.
In a Public Notice, KECOBO Executive Director Edward Sigei said the Board reviewed the competition terms and found them to be unethical by not addressing intellectual property rights of writers.
“The public is advised to avoid the campaign until authors’ rights are well recognized and paid for. The campaign requires authors to forfeit their moral rights to be recognized as an author in connection with their work as well as their economic rights in their literary work in return for a mere thank you note,” read an excerpt from the Public Notice.
Mr. Sigei further noted that the Board had also written to Cadbury to have the terms of the competition revised to fit the rights of participants.
Cadbury had launched the competition, calling upon writers to submit poems and stories that would be used to create contemporary Kenyan storybooks for children which would be available on their website for free to readers.
According to the company, this would help ignite the love for reading among children.
KECOBO insists that the author of copyright work owns both economic and moral rights in the work, stating that a violation of these would be inconsiderate and seen as theft of intellectual property.
“While economic rights can be transferred for a remuneration under Section 26 of the Copyright Act, moral rights under Section 32 of the Act are not transmissible under any circumstances,” the statement further read.