Paula Cunha, SPA Board member, participated as a guest speaker from WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), a United Nations Agency, at the WIPO sub-regional meeting for copyright authorities in Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, which took place on November 30 and December 1 in São Tomé.
WIPO stated that SPA’s role in Lusophone is unavoidable and expressed its willingness to support initiatives aimed at training and developing copyright societies in these Portuguese-speaking African countries, an action that can also be extended to Asia.
At the meeting, which was opened by Américo de Oliveira Ramos, Minister of Finance, Commerce and Blue Economy of São Tomé and Príncipe, representatives of copyright societies and government copyright organizations in Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe were present.
East Timor did not participate due to an unforseen event yet it has already adhered to WIPO, and will be a full member from December, which contributes to strengthening the role of Lusophone.
The work was also accompanied by deputies, journalists, jurists, authors and artists from the host country who participated actively in the debates.
Paula Cunha presented communications on the following topics: “The collective management organizations and good governance practices “,” Collective management systems “and” Overview of existing systems in the lusophone space in Africa: rights managed and rightholders “.
In the course of the works, it was highlighted the importance of the post-graduation on management of the collective management entities in the Lusophony that SPA promoted with the University of Lisbon-ISCSP, as well as the initiatives that have been carried out in the ambit of the Lusophone project that the cooperative of the Portuguese authors launched a few years ago and which has already led, among other results, to the acceptance by CISAC of UNAC-SA, from Angola, and SCM, from Cape Verde.
Lisbon, December 5, 2017
