G.O. SODIPO AND CO.

NEWSLETTER

APRIL, 2017.

This Newsletter is meant to bring to the knowledge of companies and advertisement agencies, new line of IP cases that have arisen from the unauthorized use of photographic pictures. This bulletin, will review two cases;
i) Where a company was sued for the unauthorized use of somebody’s picture to advertise its product.
ii) An action against a telecommunication company for the use of someone’s picture on a recharge card.
The interesting part of these cases is the cause of action under which they were commenced.
Generally, either of these scenarios above is an infringement of Copyright under Section 6(1) (b) and 51 (1) (d) of the Copyright Act. It is instructive to note that the unauthorized use of one’s picture is Copyright infringement. The cause of action which the Claimant’s used in the above cases (that is breach of privacy) was decided in the first case to be the wrong procedure while in the second case it was decided to be the right procedure.