The Copyright and Licenses Campaign
The Copyright & Licenses campaign is a social media advocacy project on copyright and open licenses to educate and enlighten Nigerians on the nature of copyright, application of open licenses, sharing creative works and how to use open licensed works. The project explained the concept of copyright, its characteristics, duration and limitations within the context of the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The concept of open licenses and works in the public domain was explained, and was introduced as a better alternative to the restrictive nature of copyright.
I recruited a team consisting of a graphics designer, animation expert, open source advocate and social media expert to assist in the implementation of the project. The next step was the creation of the pages and using a custom username for the pages to ensure consistency and similarity.
The advocacy campaign was implemented through paid promotions on Facebook and Instagram.
- The promotions on Facebook reached about 88,177 people and impressions (number of times it was seen) of 122,115.
- The promotions on Instagram reached about 179,080 people and impressions (number of times it was seen) of about 405,315.
- Priority was given to Instagram over Facebook, because a lot of creatives (artists, writers, photographer’s e.t.c) make use of Instagram compared to Facebook.
All the fliers from the campaign were compiled into a PDF and released under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license, which can be freely used and accessed from here.
Some animations were also created to further explain copyright and open licensing, the videos have been released and uploaded to YouTube under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license, which can be freely used. The videos can be freely accessed from here:
The social media advocacy campaign was great, because it was promoted to introduce the topic of open licenses to a broad group of people, that could be freely accessed, used and adapted. It also highlighted the various licenses that authors/artists could use in releasing their work to the public to promote and restrict sharing and use.
Moving forward, there is a need to further advocate for the introduction of copyright and open licenses in our educational systems to promote widespread understanding and adoption of this licenses. Important stakeholders such as government, non-governmental organizations, universities, civil society organizations, businesses, industries, firms, and international organizations like the United Nations, World Bank, etc.
In Nigeria, a lot of people still don’t know about copyright and open licenses, as well as their usage and applications. There is a need to sustain the advocacy in order to reach the maximum number of people. More work, efforts and advocacy need to be put in to make people understand in the simplest and easiest way. GLAM organizations (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) need to be involved to help share the bulk of knowledge they have available to the public.
Isaac Oloruntimilehin is a young professional, and highly passionate about the open movement. This project was initiated to educate Nigerians on the benefits of open licenses.
This project was funded by the Creative Commons Communities Activity Fund.
