Duration of Copyright in Nigeria: How Long Does Protection Last?

Chinua Achebe died on 21 March 2013. He left behind Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, A Man of the People, Anthills of the Savannah, and a body of critical and poetic work that generations of Nigerian school children have read, studied, and built upon. The question that ultimately governs how freely future Nigerian writers, adaptors, educators, and publishers can use these works is not merely one of literary respect but of copyright law: when do Achebe’s works enter the public domain?

The answer to that question, and the principles that govern it across all categories of creative work in Nigeria, is the subject of this article. Duration of copyright is often treated as a mere technical detail, a table of numbers to be memorised for an examination. It is, in fact, the legal mechanism by which copyright law reconciles itself with the constitutional freedom of expression, with access to knowledge and culture, and with the utilitarian premise that protection serves a purpose and should not extend indefinitely.

1. Why Duration Matters: The Public Domain as the Destination

Every copyright has a terminal date. When that date passes and the copyright expires, the work enters the public domain. A work in the public domain can be freely reproduced, adapted, performed, translated, broadcast, and built upon by anyone, without permission and without payment. The public domain is not a legal accident or a zone of incomplete protection; it is the intended destination of every copyrighted work once the protection period has served its purposes of rewarding the creator and incentivising creation.

For Nigerian creative culture, the public domain is where foundational works eventually become available to all. It is where future Nollywood producers can adapt classic Nigerian novels into films without needing to negotiate rights. It is where educators can freely reproduce and distribute texts. It is where researchers can quote extensively without seeking permission. Understanding when specific works enter this space requires knowing precisely which duration rule applies to which category of work, when the clock starts running, and how it is measured.

Section 19 of the Copyright Act 2022 and the First Schedule to the Act set out the duration rules. These rules vary by category of work, by whether the author is known or anonymous, by whether the work is jointly authored, and by whether the work was made under government direction or control.¹

2. Literary, Musical, and Artistic Works: Life Plus Seventy Years

Copyright in a literary, musical, or artistic work (other than a photograph, which is treated separately) subsists for seventy years after the end of the year in which the author dies.² The crucial phrase is “end of the year”: the term is not calculated from the author’s actual death date but from 31 December of the year in which that death occurred. This calendar-year rounding is not administrative convenience. It matters practically. An author who dies on 2 January in a given year and an author who dies on 30 December in the same year both have their copyright terms calculated from the same date, 31 December of that year, meaning they effectively receive the same total period of protection regardless of when within the year they died.

Returning to the opening example: Chinua Achebe died in 2013. The copyright term in his literary works therefore runs until the end of 2083, that is, seventy years after the end of 2013. From 1 January 2084, his works enter the Nigerian public domain.³

This life-plus-seventy-year standard exceeds the Berne Convention’s minimum of life plus fifty years, which is the floor that member states must meet but are free to exceed.⁴ Nigeria has chosen to go twenty years beyond the minimum, a policy choice that extends protection, and delays free public access, compared to what Berne alone would require.

3. Joint Authorship: The Last Surviving Author Rules

Where a work is one of joint authorship, the seventy-year post-mortem period does not begin to run from the death of any one of the co-authors. Section 19 provides that in the case of joint authorship, the reference to the death of the author is taken to mean the death of the author who dies last.⁵ The full seventy-year term runs from 31 December of the year in which the last surviving co-author dies.

This rule has a consequence that students routinely miss. Where a work is collaboratively authored by two people of very different ages, one of whom outlives the other by several decades, the total period of protection can be substantially longer in practice than it would be for a single author of the same age. The early-dying co-author’s heirs hold their share of the copyright for far longer than they would if the work had been authored solely by their deceased relative. This is worth flagging in examination answers because it affects the practical valuation of copyright interests in jointly authored works.

4. Anonymous and Pseudonymous Works: Publication Replaces Death

Where a literary, musical, or artistic work is published anonymously or under a pseudonym, and the real author’s identity is not publicly known, the life-plus-seventy formula cannot be applied because there is no publicly known author whose death triggers the calculation. Section 19 addresses this by substituting a different trigger: copyright in such a work subsists for seventy years after the end of the year in which the work was first made available to the public with the consent of the author.⁶ If the work is never made available to the public within seventy years of its creation, the term runs for seventy years from the year of creation.

The rule changes if the author’s identity becomes known before the term expires. Once the real author is identified, the term switches to the standard life-plus-seventy formula, running from the end of the year in which the now-identified author eventually dies. This creates an interpretive question in borderline cases where an author’s identity becomes partially known through inference rather than direct disclosure, and it is an area where Nigerian courts may eventually need to define what “becoming known” means precisely enough to apply the transitional rule.

5. Audiovisual Works and Photographs: Fifty Years from Availability

Copyright in an audiovisual work or a photograph subsists for fifty years after the end of the year in which the work was first made available to the public with the consent of the author.⁷ If the work is created but never made available to the public, the fifty-year period runs from the end of the year in which the work was created.

The practical trigger for audiovisual works, the moment of first making available to the public, is typically the date of first public screening or release. For a Nollywood film released in Nigerian cinemas in 2024, the fifty-year term runs to the end of 2074. For a Nollywood film that was completed but never commercially released, the fifty-year term runs from the end of the year of production.

Note the deliberate contrast with the treatment of literary, musical, and artistic works: the author’s death is not the trigger for audiovisual works or photographs. The trigger is the first public availability of the work itself. This reflects the fact that audiovisual works are typically collaborative, with multiple contributors whose individual lifetimes would be impractical to track for duration purposes, and are more closely analogous to commercial products than to individual authorial expression.

6. Sound Recordings: Fifty Years from Availability or Creation

Copyright in a sound recording subsists for fifty years after the end of the year in which the recording was first made available to the public with the consent of the copyright holder, or fifty years after the end of the year of creation if the recording was never publicly released.⁸

This has direct commercial significance for the enormous catalogue of Nigerian popular music. A recording made in 1974 that was commercially released in that year would see its copyright expire at the end of 2024. Early Afrobeat recordings by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, who died in 1997, present a more complex picture: the sound recordings themselves are governed by the fifty-year publication rule and may already be entering the public domain, while the underlying musical compositions in which Fela held copyright are governed by the life-plus-seventy rule and will remain in copyright until the end of 2067. This is the kind of layered duration analysis that a strong examination answer on a question about a famous musician’s estate would need to demonstrate.

7. Broadcasts: Fifty Years from First Transmission

Copyright in a broadcast subsists for fifty years after the end of the year in which the broadcast first took place.⁹ This rule is straightforward: the trigger is the date of first transmission, whether the broadcast was live or recorded. For a live television broadcast of a major event, the fifty-year clock begins running from the year of that transmission.

8. Government and International Body Works: Fifty Years from Availability

Works made by or under the direction or control of government, a state authority, or a prescribed international body are governed by a fifty-year term running from the end of the year in which the work was first made available to the public, or from the year of creation if never publicly released.¹⁰

This has implications that receive no attention in student-focused commentary. A significant volume of Nigerian government publications, official reports, maps, and administrative documents created in the 1970s and early 1980s are, mathematically, already in or close to the public domain under this rule. This means that researchers, archivists, and publishers working with Nigerian official publications from that era can, with proper duration analysis, identify government works that can be freely reproduced and disseminated without seeking government permission. The practical enforcement of government copyright in Nigeria has in any event been modest, but the legal question of whether the term has expired is a live one for publishers of historical official documents.

9. No Rule of the Shorter Term: Nigeria Gives Full Domestic Protection to Foreign Works

One feature of the 2022 Act’s duration framework that has significant consequences for the treatment of foreign works in Nigeria is its deliberate rejection of the rule of the shorter term.

The rule of the shorter term is a mechanism used by some countries to limit the term of protection given to foreign works to whatever the work enjoys in its country of origin, even if the domestic term would otherwise be longer. Nigeria’s Copyright Act 2022 does not adopt this rule.¹¹ Once a foreign work qualifies for protection in Nigeria under the sections governing qualification discussed in Conditions for Copyright Protection in Nigeria: Originality, Fixation and Qualifying Factors, it enjoys the full Nigerian duration, not the shorter duration that might apply in the country where the work was first created and published.

The practical consequence of this choice is that some works may be in the public domain in their country of origin but remain fully protected in Nigeria. A work from a country whose copyright term is life plus fifty years, where the author died forty-five years ago, is in the public domain in that country but retains twenty-five more years of Nigerian protection under Nigeria’s life-plus-seventy standard. A Nigerian publisher or broadcaster who copies or uses that work in Nigeria cannot rely on its public domain status in its country of origin as a defence. The Nigerian duration applies, regardless of what is happening elsewhere.

10. The Constitutional Foundation of Duration

Duration is not arbitrary. It sits at the intersection of the utilitarian theory of intellectual property and the constitutional protection of expression. Copyright law justifies its monopoly as a trade-off: creators receive temporary exclusive rights in exchange for eventually releasing their works into the public domain. The “temporary” part of this bargain is enforced by the duration rules. When copyright expires, the constitutional right in section 39 of the 1999 Constitution to receive and impart information is fully restored in relation to the expired work.¹² Any legal analysis that treats duration as merely a technical detail misses this constitutional underpinning. The duration rules are the mechanism by which copyright law, which is inherently a limitation on freedom of expression, is bounded in time so that the limitation is proportionate and serves its stated purpose rather than creating a permanent monopoly over creative expression.

There is also a dimension that connects to section 44 of the Constitution, which protects property rights.¹³ The eventual expiry of copyright is, in one sense, a form of compulsory transfer of intellectual property into the public domain without compensation. Unlike the compulsory licensing provisions discussed in the article on economic rights, this transfer happens automatically by operation of the duration provisions themselves, not by government order, and no compensation is payable because the very creation of time-limited copyright rights implies and incorporates the eventual expiry from the moment the right first arises. This is the deal the law has always offered, and a rights holder cannot complain that expiry violates their section 44 rights because the property right was always defined as time-limited.

11. Problem Question Framework

When a problem question requires you to determine whether copyright still subsists in a specific work, follow this sequence.

Step one: identify the category of work. Apply the correct duration rule for that category. Do not assume life-plus-seventy applies to all works; this standard is confined to literary, musical, and artistic works (excluding photographs).

Step two: identify the trigger event. For literary, musical, and artistic works, the trigger is the author’s death. For audiovisual works, photographs, sound recordings, and broadcasts, the trigger is the first making-available to the public or the date of creation if never publicly released. For government works, the trigger is the first making-available to the public.

Step three: calculate from the end of the relevant calendar year. Determine which calendar year the trigger event falls in, then count forward the applicable number of years from the end of that year.

Step four: for joint works, use the last surviving author’s death. Do not calculate from the death of any co-author other than the one who died last.

Step five: check the “no rule of the shorter term” point for foreign works. If the work is foreign, apply the Nigerian duration regardless of whether the work has already entered the public domain in its country of origin.

Step six: if copyright has expired, remember that moral rights have also expired. Under section 14(4) of the 2022 Act, moral rights subsist only for the duration of copyright. Once copyright expires, a work is in the public domain in all its dimensions.

12. Common Student Mistakes

Applying life-plus-seventy to all categories of work. This is the most common duration error. The life-plus-seventy rule applies only to literary, musical, and artistic works (excluding photographs). Audiovisual works, photographs, sound recordings, broadcasts, and government works all carry shorter, event-triggered terms.

Calculating the term from the exact date of the triggering event rather than from the end of the calendar year. The Act specifies that terms run from the end of the year of the triggering event, not from the specific date. Calculating from an exact month-and-day rather than from 31 December of the relevant year will produce an incorrect answer.

Treating the sound recording and the underlying musical composition as having the same duration. The musical composition copyright runs for life plus seventy years from the composer’s death. The sound recording copyright runs for fifty years from first public release. For any well-known Nigerian musician’s work, these two durations will expire at very different times.

Assuming a work that is in the public domain abroad is also in the public domain in Nigeria. As discussed in section 9 above, Nigeria does not apply the rule of the shorter term. A work in the public domain in its country of origin may still be fully protected in Nigeria under Nigeria’s longer domestic term.

Forgetting that anonymous works switch to life-plus-seventy if the author’s identity later becomes known. Where a work was originally published anonymously but the author is later identified, the duration rule changes from publication-based to life-based. Students who apply the anonymous publication rule to a work whose author is now known are making a factual and legal error.

13. Quick Reference Table

14. Key Cases and Comparative Illustrations

No significant body of decided Nigerian case law exists on the duration provisions specifically, largely because duration disputes are relatively uncommon in litigation: either copyright has clearly expired or it has clearly not, and the fact-finding required to establish the trigger date is usually more straightforward than the doctrinal analysis involved in eligibility or infringement questions. The following illustrative examples are offered as analytical tools rather than case citations.

Chinua Achebe (1930-2013): Things Fall Apart, originally published in 1958, remains in copyright in Nigeria until the end of 2083, when the life-plus-seventy term from the end of 2013 expires. The same 2084 entry-to-public-domain date applies to all of Achebe’s literary works. A publisher who reprints Things Fall Apart in 2025 without authorisation from Achebe’s estate is infringing a copyright that has decades of protection remaining.

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (1938-1997): The musical compositions, in which Fela held copyright as composer and lyricist, are protected for seventy years after the end of 1997, meaning until the end of 2067. The sound recordings, however, are subject to the fifty-year rule running from first public release. Recordings released in 1973 would have seen their sound recording copyright expire at the end of 2023. The composition copyright and the recording copyright are thus on entirely separate timelines, and a broadcaster who wishes to use early Fela recordings needs to analyse both independently before concluding that either or both are free to use.

Footnotes

¹ Section 19, Copyright Act 2022; First Schedule, Copyright Act 2022.

² First Schedule, paragraph 1, Copyright Act 2022; Lexology, ‘Snapshot: The Scope of Copyright in Nigeria’ (2023), confirming 70 years post-mortem for literary, musical, or artistic works other than photographs.

³ First Schedule, paragraph 1, Copyright Act 2022 (life + 70 years, running from end of year of death).

⁴ Article 7(1), Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

⁵ Section 19, Copyright Act 2022 (joint authorship provision); WIPO, provision on works of joint authorship under Berne Article 7bis.

⁶ First Schedule, paragraph 2 (or equivalent anonymous works provision), Copyright Act 2022.

⁷ First Schedule, paragraph 3, Copyright Act 2022 (audiovisual works and photographs: 50 years from year of first making available or creation).

⁸ First Schedule, paragraph 4, Copyright Act 2022 (sound recordings: 50 years from year of first making available or creation).

⁹ First Schedule, paragraph 5, Copyright Act 2022 (broadcasts: 50 years from year of first broadcast).

¹⁰ Section 19 and First Schedule, paragraph 2, Copyright Act 2022 (government and international body works: 50 years from year of first making available or creation).

¹¹ Mondaq, ‘Copyright Comparative Guide: Nigeria’ (2025), confirming that the Copyright Act 2022 does not apply a rule of the shorter term and that foreign qualifying works enjoy the full Nigerian domestic duration.

¹² Section 39(1), Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.

¹³ Section 44(1), Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.