Obtaining Effective Remedies for Copyright Infringement in Cameroon: Identifying Contemporary Legal Challenges

Abstract

This paper is based on the assumption that copyright infringement the world over and in Cameroon particularly is alarming and there is a need for the violators of copyrighted works to be sanctioned. With this, the paper set to determine the readily available remedies the copyright owner can seek following the infringement of a copyrighted work. The paper established that, the underlying idea behind copyright protection is to award fruits of labour to the person who has work and produced the copyrighted works based on originality and to prevent economic exploitation of the work of a creator by third parties. In keeping with this objective, the 2000 Copyright and Neighboring Rights law of Cameroon provides more specifically for penal sanction for the offence of infringement of copyright. However, some remedies are available under case law and the application of case law. It is recommended that, a cursory look of the sanctioned provided by the Cameroonian law of copyright should be given as it contained only criminal sanctions.