Winners of UCT’s World IP Day Meme Competition announced

World IP day is celebrated annually on the 26th of April, initiated by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). This year’s theme was “Digital Creativity: Culture Re-imagined”, which aimed to raise awareness of intellectual property rights in digital works.

RC&I hosted a meme competition on social media over a number of months to celebrate World IP Day. This presented a wonderful opportunity to educate staff and students on copyright in digital works.

The competition ended on 1 August and we received a total of 19 valid entries. The winners were announced at a lunch time event on Upper Campus on 10 August. We had two winners: Nigel Patel won the category Most Popular Meme, and Ryan Griffiths won the category Most Creative Meme.  Dr Tobias Schonwetter of UCT’s IP Law Unit presented a very informative talk on copyright in memes, adaptation of copyrighted works, and creative commons.

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all who participated and NIPMO for sponsoring the initiative!

World IP day is celebrated annually on the 26th of April, initiated by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). This year’s theme is “Digital Creativity: Culture Re-imagined”, which aims to raise awareness of intellectual property rights in digital works.

RC&I hosted a meme competition on social media over a number of months to celebrate World IP Day. The word “meme” was coined by Richard Dawkins in 1979 as a “package of culture”.  Today, according to Google, the word is typically used for “a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc. that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users”.

RC&I felt that a meme competition linked in very well with the overall theme. Memes, being digital cultural works, are often shared across international borders. They are typically adaptations of the original works of other people, and the question of copyright ownership is therefore important. The competition created a wonderful opportunity to teach students and staff, in a very practical way, about copyright ownership, legal adaptations of works, and sharing of works (e.g. through Creative Commons Licences).

A Facebook page was created where participants could post their entries.  It reached more than 30,000 people and had 400+ page likes. Regular informative and educative articles on copyright, creative commons licences, permitted use of copyrighted works, etc. were posted to the page.

The competition was open to all UCT students and staff. Entries had to be relevant to UCT campus life, the participants had to ensure they had the right to use the original work that the meme is based on, they had to post the meme to the Facebook page, and they had to share their works using any Creative Commons Licence and indicate such.

The competition ended on 1 August with a total of 19 valid entries received. The winners were announced at a lunch time event on Upper Campus on 10 August. We had two winners: Nigel Patel won the category Most Popular Meme, and Ryan Griffiths won the category Most Creative Meme.   Ryan’s meme received more than 300 likes on Facebook, and was shared by others more than 80 times. The Most Creative Meme was decided by a representative group of staff who volunteered from the Research Office, Finance Office and RC&I. Piet Barnard, director of RC&I, handed out the prizes, which were a selection of items from the UCT Campus Store.

Dr Tobias Schonwetter of UCT’s IP Law Unit (and Regional Coordinator for Creative Commons in Africa) presented a very informative talk on copyright in memes, adaptation of copyrighted works, and creative commons.

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all who participated and NIPMO for sponsoring the initiative!