The Kenya Copyright Board (Kecobo) has warned Artists against participating in a competition by Cadbury’s dubbed “In our Own Words”, saying the terms are “unethical”.

“Be warned! Don’t take part in the Cadbury Competition dubbed ‘ln our own Words’ until authors’ rights are well recognized and paid for.”Kecobo said in a statement.

The “In our Own Story” campaign by Cadbury seeks to collect original stories from authors and form a children’s book. Their terms state that once a person has submitted their story they will receive a thank you note and once published the writers will cease being the authors of the work.

“Participants will not be compensated for original stories, by submitting the stories the participant is donating their story and therefore will not be the story author upon publishing,” The Terms by Cadbury read in part.

According to Kecobo Executive Director Edward Sigei , the terms of the campaign are unethical and amount to subjecting writers to degrading treatment while taking away their intellectual property rights.

“The campaign requires authors to forfeit their moral rights to be recognized as an author in connection with their work as well as their economic rights in their literary work in return for a mere thank you note,” Sigei said.

“The public is advised to avoid the campaign until authors’ rights are well recognized and paid for.”

The copyright board maintained that “While economic rights can be transferred for a remuneration under Section 26 of the Copyright Act, moral rights under Section 32 of the Act are not transmissible under any circumstances,” the statement said.

Sigei further said that the board has also written to Cadbury to have the terms of the competition revised.