The Nigerian Copyright Commission says increased enforcement and implementation of the new Copyright Act has significantly strengthened anti-piracy efforts in Nigeria.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the new Act 2022 is aimed at protecting digital creations, combating online piracy and modernising rights for the creative industry.
Dr John Asein, Director-General of NCC, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday in Abuja.
Asein said the commission was working to measure the current level of piracy in order to determine the impact of the new law on Nigeria’s creative industry.
He noted that although there was no empirical basis yet to attach a specific figure to the reduction, he added that it has gone down.
The director-general said piracy had serious consequences for the creative industry, because creators were unable to properly monetise their works and recoup investments.
According to him, the prevalence of piracy also discourages people from venturing into content creation and makes it difficult to attract foreign partners and investors into the industry.
He said the increasing digitalisation of content had made copyright protection more important, as creative works could now be accessed and distributed from virtually anywhere in the world.
Asein cited a recent case involving the registration of a movie piracy platform using a Nigerian “.ng” domain, noting that the operators were actually based in Asia.
He said the commission succeeded in bringing down the Nigerian domain, after which the operators moved the platform to the Philippines.
“This is what happens when you do not put the right guidelines in your country. Then you will have a free-for-all, where rogues will take over legitimate play,” he said.
He stressed that Nigeria could not afford to allow piracy to undermine its globally recognised film and music industries.
“We can’t afford to see the actual players going beggarly just because pirates are taking over“he said.
The NCC boss said the commission was also taking advantage of technology to block websites and platforms that distributed copyrighted works illegally.
He said the impact of the enforcement could be seen in complaints from people who previously accessed free music and movies from illegal platforms but could no longer do so.
“We have had some other sectors that have come to us and complained that where they used to get free music has been blocked,“he said.
He, however, called for stronger protection of copyrighted works as more Nigerians increasingly used mobile devices to watch films and listen to music.
According to him, telecommunications companies are also beginning to offer streaming services, making copyright protection important for both traditional and digital content platforms.
“The failure to protect creative works on emerging digital platforms can expose content creators to increased piracy when their works are eventually distributed through such platforms.
“I urged stakeholders to develop and respect mechanisms that will promote copyright protection and ensure sustainable growth in the creative industry,” he added.
Asein said an action plan emerging from the seminar would be crucial to taking Nigeria’s creative industry to the next level, as the country marked its 66th Independence anniversary.
“It will be a wonderful gift to Nigeria to see that stakeholders are really committed to ensuring that the creative industry in Nigeria continues to prosper,” he said.