Do you know that sharing a meme in Kenya makes you a criminal?
The Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) has warned Kenyans and corporates against using memes for commercial purposes without obtaining consent from the owners.
According to media reports in Kenya, KECOBO executive director Edward Sigei said that the use of memes by some Kenyan corporates on social media platforms raises significant copyright concerns.
“A meme is an image, video, or text used in social media for humorous or political banter and illustrative of a line of thought on a topic under discussion. Memes are in most cases static images created from a photograph, illustration, text, or video that is protected by copyright,” said Sigei.
“In that regard, a copyright owner can create a meme from his photograph or video in the exercise of their rights under copyright. Such memes can be exploited for the benefit of the author through advertising and as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs),” he added.
He stated that a meme generated without the authority of the Copyright owner is an infringement on their copyright particularly the exclusive rights to reproduce, copy, adapt and publish since the original photograph or video undergoes some alteration and incorporation of a text.