PROTECTION OF LEGISLATIVE TEXTS UNDER THE NIGERIAN COPYRIGHT SYSTEM

Abstract

Virtually every legal system of the world provides for the protection of intellectual property rights. Intellectual property rights, essentially, are legal rights resulting from intellectual activities.124 In other words they are rights, deliberately granted by governments, over creations of human intellect. Generally, the rights granted enable holders to exercise control over the doing of certain acts as regards their intellectual creations, which in the main are of commercial value.125 This means, intellectual property rights are exclusive and negative in nature, as they stop all others from engaging in certain activities relating to intellectual creations without the permission or licence of the right holder, even if they have independently developed the subject matter of protection.