Sometimes you think that trademark and copyright infringement is only a hot item in United States and Europe. But IP conflicts occur everywhere from Kyrgyzstan to Sint Lucia. Probably these conflicts do not receive a lot of attention of the media. Time for a change, with news from Kenya / Tanzania and Congo.
The Kenyan singer Slim G released his latest single Najma and sent it also to radio stations in Mwanza and Dar es Salaam. Now he found out that bongo singer Belle 9 “created” a song very similar to his. According to Slim G the melody, chorus and lyrics are the same. A friend of his producer comes from Tanzania and told the producer that a similar song was being sold on the streets in Tanzania.
Slim G intends to take up the matter with the Music Copyright Society of Kenya if “Belle 9 doesn’t stop marketing the song as his own”.
A different story involving a prominent researcher from Congo. This researcher sent a scientific paper to International journal of biodiversity and conservation. Scientific papers are usually reviewed by colleague researchers and this paper ended up with the Dutch researcher Patrick Jansen. This paper felt familiar, the paper was a true copy including identical tables, illustrations and graphs from a article he wrote several years ago! It seems that this researcher had copied already 9 other papers!