Film, music, fashion, digital content, gaming, and design, as well as the technology platforms that distribute and monetise creative work, are among Nigeria’s fastest-growing sectors and among its top exports to the world. Nollywood is the second-largest film industry in the world by volume with the industry projected to surpass ₦20 billion in gross box office revenue by the end of 2026.
The Nigerian music industry is attracting international commercial interest in a way that seemed impossible a decade ago. Nigerian fashion, design, and digital content are gaining commercial sophistication.
Yet the intellectual property infrastructure that should capture and compound this creative output is, in most cases, inadequate. Rights are often unregistered, while contracts are either missing or poorly drafted. Some licensing arrangements are informal or nonexistent. As a result, revenue that should accrue to Nigerian creators and the businesses that deal with them instead flows to distributors, platforms and counterparties that have better legal frameworks for protecting their interests. This highlights five key IP strategies that businesses in Nigeria’s creative economy must adopt and the mistakes that are currently costing them money that must be avoided.
- REGISTER TRADEMARKS EARLY
Trademarks must be registered early before the brand is valuable enough to be stolen or adapted by competitors. Nigeria follows a ‘first-to-file’ rule. This means the legal owner is the person who registers the trademark first, regardless of who created the brand or used it in the market first.
So the commercial consequence for a Nigerian creative brand that has not registered its trademark is that its name, logo, or distinctive mark can be registered by a competitor, distributor, or anyone who has seen the brand as commercially valuable and has moved to take it away. Once another party has registered the mark, the original creator has to either litigate (which is expensive, slow and uncertain) or make arrangements with the registered owner (which may be commercially damaging).
Currently, the Nigerian Trademarks Registry processes applications for a lengthy time, from the time of application to registration. This means that trademark registration should be initiated before a brand attains commercial significance, not after. The cost of a trademark application is small but the cost of having to fight a trademark dispute or losing the right to use your own brand name is not.
. 2. IP ASSIGNMENT CLAUSES IN EVERY CONTRACT
Intellectual Property Assignment Clauses in Every Designer, Developer, and Content Creator contract exist from the moment of creation, but the owner of that copyright is the creator and not the person who commissioned the work in Nigeria. It means a Nigerian fashion brand paying a designer to create a collection, a technology company paying a developer to build its platform, or a music label paying a producer to make a recording – all of these businesses may not own the intellectual property in what they paid for unless their contracts explicitly say so.
Copyright in a commissioned work is owned by the author unless agreed upon in writing otherwise, as per the Nigerian copyright act. A verbal agreement is not sufficient. A purchase order or invoice is not enough. Those assignments must be in writing and signed by the creator with the IP and terms.
The practical consequence is that all work done by a designer or developer or photographer or videographer or content creator or producer has to be accompanied by a written contract assigning all copyright and associated rights to work or product to the commissioning party by an express agreement.It should also contain a warranty that the creator owns the rights being assigned and that the work does not violate third parties’ rights, as well as a confirmation obligation that the creator must execute all other documents necessary to complete the transfer.
Without these things in place, the business is legally uncertain about who actually owns its creative assets – something that is immediately apparent in due diligence, licensing negotiations, or enforcement actions.
- ROYALTY AGREEMENTS
Among the most commercially underused tools in the Nigerian creative economy are royalty agreements that generate recurring revenue through IP licensing. Many Nigerian musicians, filmmakers, authors and creators simply hand over the work in full when a properly structured licensing deal could produce steady revenue over a long period without compromising the creator’s ownership of the rights behind it.
Some of the specific licensing structures that Nigerian creative economy businesses should be using but which are often not are: synchronization licenses for music used in film, television, advertising, and digital content – where the royalty is paid per use or per download; print-on-demand or distribution licenses for creative content on digital platforms – where the royalty is paid periodically; and merchandise licensing where a brand or creative asset is licensed to a manufacturer for a royalty on sales.
In order to be effective, royalty agreements must include: What is covered by the license – for what pur mpose – in what territory – and for how long, your royalty rate and calculation basis (a percentage of revenue or a per-unit fee, or a fixed periodic payment), the audit rights of the licensor (the right to inspect the accounts of the licensee to confirm the royalty calculation) are also important. In addition, the termination provisions (where and how the license can be terminated, and what happens to any sub-licenses granted by the licensee) are also discussed.
