Nigerian Entertainers and social media influencers are in no doubt very creative, as they don’t just entertain they also put their creativities to test in numerous occasions. Most of them have popularized and influenced some trending and house hold words and slogans like Mr. Macaroni’s Fantabulous, You are doing well, Oiin etc and Josh2funny’s All my guys are ballers, Don’t leave me, in all circumstances, consequences boys etc, Jigan Babaoja’s Sho mo age mi ni and Davidsyn the comedian who just popularized the slogan “Normally’ which is currently trending across different social media platforms.
Everyone who spends some time in the social media space will definitely be aware of when the slogan “Sho mo age mi ni” which is a Yoruba phrase meaning “do you know my age?” which was influenced by Nigerian comedian and actor, Jigan Babaoja was trending. It was so popular then and still popular now that everyone was saying it and even Nigerian banks and blue chip companies were using it in their newsletters as a catchy trending phrase.
Mr. Jigan Babaoja decided to confront one of the banks that was using the slogan he purportedly popularized to pay him or to refrain from using his slogan without his permission as that will amount to infringement on his intellectual property rights. The banks and other organizations using that slogan were able to get away with it because the slogan was not “trademarked” hence, Jigan cannot claim abt legal rights on that phrase though it was him who everyone knows popularized the phrase and influenced the usage in the social media.
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Nigerian Entertainers and creatives should know that you can not lay claim to a word or slogan when you have not trademarked it as your intellectual property even if everyone knows that you are the originator, the law is that you must register it or trademark it which is a means of you giving notice to the whole word that the word or slogan is now yours exclusively and anyone who wants to make use of it must obtain express permission from you and pay for you for it, if not it will amount to them infringing on your (intellectual property) rights.
This is the reason why Nigeria creatives and influencers must learn the art of making money off their crafts by always trademarking words and slogans they originated out of their creativities, acquire parent rights and copyrights of the products they invented and influenced. The benefits are numerous but one of it is having exclusive legal rights to your brain child or your intellectual property property and making huge money off your creativity.