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Who owns the App? The Freelancer or the Start-up

 

What is Copyright and why is so important?

Copyright is a type of intellectual property right that gives the owner the exclusive right to use, copy and distribute creative works. Protection of intellectual property rights is very crucial to any start-up’s success since the value of tech and entertainment start-ups is often based on how valuable their intellectual property is. Copyright -which is a category of intellectual property rights- protects original works of authors (i.e, software developers, songwriters, composers, producers, artists, etc.) that have been fixed in any definite medium of expression. For a work to be eligible for copyright protection, it must be in a tangible medium such as software codes, songs, movies and it cannot be abstract or an idea.

In Nigeria, any work that qualifies for copyright protection belongs to its author. As a result, the freelancer who was hired to create an app actually owns the copyright to the codes used to create it, and the photographer who was paid to take photos of you actually owns the copyright to these photos as well, unless otherwise agreed. Most startup founders get freelancers to develop apps for the unique ideas they have. The problem is that most times, these start-ups do not enter into freelance contracts -that contain copyright assignment clauses- or intellectual property assignment contracts with the freelancers and therefore, the freelancers could challenge ownership of the apps created by their codes in future.

How do you maintain ownership of your App?

It is advisable to have a lawyer prepare an intellectual property assignment agreement or a freelance contract that contains clauses clearly stating who owns the copyright to the work that is created.

These are agreements or clauses in agreements that basically state that the owner of the intellectual property right has transferred ownership of those rights to another individual, in this case, the start-up that contracted his services. Without these agreements or clauses in freelance contracts, ownership of these codes remains with the developers.

For more information about our intellectual property and startup advisory services, you can reach us via – .

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