KECOBO raises red flag over Cardbury’s ‘In Our Own Words’ campaign

The Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) has raised concern over a campaign being run by Cardbury due to alleged unethical terms of competition.

The campaign dubbed ‘In Our Own Words,’ which aims at encouraging book reading among children, requires authors to submit original Kenyan tales to be turned into books for children to read. 

Writers would however forfeit their rights of being recognised as the author of the story and instead of being paid they would receive a thank you note. 

KECOBO termed it as “unethical and amounts to subjecting writers to degrading treatment while taking away their intellectual property rights.”

The statement reads, “It has come to the attention of the Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO), that Cadbury is running a campaign dubbed ‘In Our Own Words’… The campaign requires authors to forfeit their moral rights to be recognised as an author in connection with their work as well as their economic rights in their literary work in return for a mere thank you note.” 

“As such, KECOBO has written to the Cadbury to renew the terms of the competition or withdraw it entirely. The public is advised to avoid the campaign until authors’ rights are well recognised and paid for,” the copyright board added. 

According to article 40 of the Constitution, the right to property of any description which includes intellectual property including Copyright is guaranteed. Therefore, the author of a copyright work owns both economic rights and moral rights in the work. 

KECOBO states, “While economic rights can be transferred for a remuneration under Section 26 of the Copyright Act, moral rights under Section 32 of the Act are not transmissible under any circumstances.”