allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Piracy - Robber of Intellectual Property (Page 1 of 2)

While piracy accounts for almost 7% of all global trade, Nigeria accounts for 80% of the pirated international music CDs. In this illustrative essay, Michael Dibie captures the damaging effect of piracy on global trade.

Nigeria's status as a favourable destination for foreign direct investment as well as a place where local creative talent can flourish is in jeopardy. No thanks to the activities of criminals that place no value on intellectual property (IP). That was the alarming message from a panel of experts who debated the enforcement of IP rights at the opening day of the CTO business and technology summit in Lagos recently.

The summit was organized by the US Mission to Nigeria and sponsored by leading technology organisations, including the Business Software Alliance (BSA) – an industry body that represents commercial software developers and other computer companies and software developer Microsoft. It brought together luminaries from the public, private, government and commercial sectors of local and international industry. "We need to focus on getting the economic and legal fundamental right in Nigeria in order to open the door to prosperity and growth," said Brian Browne, the US Consul General, in his keynote address.

"When it comes to the abuse of intellectual property rights, everyone suffers – the person in the street, leaders of businesses, international trading partners and the Nigerian economy as a whole. We still have a major problem with counterfeit goods of all kinds here in the country.

"Theft of IP deprives Nigerian professionals of the revenue they have rightly earned and the government of the taxes that can be derived from that revenue reinvest in the economy".

Karen Burress, a US Department of Commerce Representative visiting from Washington D.C., pointed out that counterfeit goods including music, movies, electronic goods, food stuffs, automotive parts and pharmaceuticals, among many other things account for seven per cent of all global trade. This equated to almost $350 billion in lost revenues and millions of jobs gone worldwide.

"We estimate that Nigeria is the largest market in Africa for goods that infringe IP rights. Around 80% of the international music CDs available here are pirated; even the local music industry sees 40% of its products being copied, counterfeited or sold illegally," she said.

At a recent joint operation by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the Copyright Commission and Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria (PMAN) in Lagos, pirated local and foreign musical compact discs and video CDs worth over N15million were confisticated by the agencies, which acted on a tip-off.

Former PMAN President, Mr. Charles Oputa, (a.k.a. Charly Boy) and former director-general of the NCC, Mr. Adebambo Adewopo and director-general of SON, Dr. John Akanya, disclosed that operatives of the regulatory agencies are still interrogating the arrested Chinese owners of the company of the pirated materials, who will soon face prosecution. Meanwhile, the impounded pirated musical products are now in the custody of the SON, pending their public destruction by burning by the inter-agency operations team.

The question therefore remains: what can be done? Gerald Ilukwe, the Regional Manager for Microsoft in Nigeria and Ghana, said after the event that a combination of awareness creation and legal enforcement is the most effective method.

Recently, the Nigeria Copyright Commission (NCC) got a rare pat on the back when the United States removed Nigeria from the Special 301 Lists of countries blacklisted for condoning intellectual property theft in recognition of the renewed battle against the increasing spate of piracy and counterfeiting.

The Special 301 is a Federal law that defines the US measures against countries identified as denying effective protection for intellectual property.

Despite the renewed vim brought in the fight against piracy in the country, intellectual property theft is still rampant. But the good tiding is that at least, Nigeria has started the battle and the challenge is really how to minimise to the barest minimum, if not uproot, this cankerworm which undermines the creative enterprise of the artistes, writers and other creators of intellectual works who are being denied the fruits of their intellect.

The creative industry has been at the receiving end of piracy over the years. Book publishing which used to be a vital aspect of the economy has been greatly affected as many authors have suffered huge losses with the bookstands awash with fake copies of their works. In fact, piracy in Nigeria has become a highly organised crime and a huge industry involving both locals and foreigners that controlled the bulk of both production and distribution channels of copyright works. Piracy thrives more in the entertainment industry where the production and distribution capacity of all genre of works are daily being undermined . The home video and music producers have suffered huge losses to piracy. What is today the success story of Nollywood is indeed in spite of the pirates. Musicians still depend heavily on road shows to capitalise on their popular numbers as against the meager amount of royalty from compact disc sales.

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