The Copyright Society of Liberia (COSOL), under the auspices of the Liberia Intellectual Property Office (LIPO), has disclosed that it has concluded arrangement geared towards facilitating a thorough knowledge-sharing exercise for various stakeholders of Liberia’s creative industries.
According to COSOL’s Executive Director, Prince Emmanuel Decker, the four-day training session, which is aimed at providing education and creating awareness for players of the creative sector, is in continuation of COSOL’s duty as Liberia’s collective management organization (CMO).
Decker pointed out that the four-day two-hour daily training exercise, held under the nomenclature, “Membership and License Training Workshop”, which is set to commence from Tuesday, July 5 to Friday, July 8, 2022, will endeavor to drill creative industries’ stakeholders on COSOL’s mandate, which covers royalty collection, rights holders, mandate acquisition, including awareness and sensitization.
COSOL is LIPO-recognized secretariat established in 2009 through regulation LIPO/COSOL/CR/001/2019 under Title 24, Liberia Code of Law Revised, otherwise known as the Intellectual Property Act of 2016.
Since its coming into existence in 2009, COSOL has put in place workable mechanism to ensure it carries out its function of entering into license agreement with legal entities and the issuance of license certificate.
Providing update on the up-coming training, COSOL’s boss noted that day one of the workshop, under the subject, “COSOL Membership Certification”, will seek to educate members of Liberia’s creative sector on COSOL’s membership certification and license compliance processes.
Decker noted that participants, on day-one of the workshop, will comprise of stakeholders from Liberia’s creative sector and COSOL’s provisional members. He pointed out that, upon drilling participants, session will grant full membership to provisional members (creative artists) who have certified COSOL’s requirement to be enrolled in the copyright program as full members.
According to COSOL’s boss, day two of the workshop will dwell on the theme, “To Enhance Royalty Collection for Value Addition to Liberia’s Creative Industries”, and will place insightful emphasis on “copyright and business”.
Decker said during this session COSOL will endeavor to drill participants on the benefit of taking COSOL’s licensing process to the public and to also provide the avenue for the users of creative contents on the local market to acquire firsthand accessibility to COSOL”s license program.
Participants of day two’s session will be drawn from entities operating streaming platforms and operators and owners of transfer of download practitioners in Montserrado County.
To enhance royalty collection for value addition to Liberia’s creative industries will take the main stage on day three of COSOL’s knowledge sharing workshop. According to COSOL’s boss, copyright and business will be the focus of this session. He said the session will strive to provide hands-on knowledge to enhance their understanding of royalty collection.
Participants of day three’s session will consist of owners and operators of cinemas and video clubs in Montserrado County.
Day four, which climaxes COSOL’s four-day training session, will dwell on the theme, “Enhancing Royalty Collection for Value Addition to Liberia’s Creative Industries”, will place emphasis on “copyright and business”. The purpose of this session, according to Decker, is to enhance stakeholders’ capacity on royalty collection.