PROTECTING TRADITIONAL CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS AS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ASSETS BY HON. OLOWO OJO AJIBOYE
PROTECTING TRADITIONAL CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS AS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ASSETS BY HON. OLOWO OJO AJIBOYE [1] Abstract Traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) are sitting on a gold mine worth in the latest estimation, billions of dollars. Yet they remain untapped particularly in undeveloped countries like Nigeria. The principal cause of this is all round ignorance. Ignorance is synonymous with darkness and with darkness comes inaction, or the pretence of action. With darkness comes fraud and thievery and their accompanying agents of intellectual property poachers or exploiters. As a consequence, little or no effort is put in place by the people or agencies concerned to recognise the economic importance of TCEs as intellectual property assets and to protect and enforce them as such for the benefit of the source communities and for the nation. This lapse has given rise to cultural appropriators or intellectual property thieves to plunder cultural intellectual property assets worth bill