Bleak Yuletide for pirates in LagosBy Chuks Nwanne
Published: December 29, 2007
Print The Nigerian Copyright Commission, NCC, the government agency charged with the responsibility of chasing pirates off the works of intellectual property owners made sure that these set of notorious people had a bleak Christmas season as several raids were carried out in the Lagos metropolis last week.
Luck ran out of fake CD dealers based in Elegushi International Market, Lekki, Lagos recently as the NCC Copyright Inspectors carried out another major raid in the market, which is suspected to be a den of piracy. In company of some armed police officer drawn from the Ikeja police command, the raid team stormed the market at about 11am with four buses, ready to take on defaulters.
On sighting the policemen and the NCC inspectors approaching the market, majority of the suspected pirates took to their heels, leaving their shops and wares behind. But the team succeeded in arresting about five of the pirates who were later moved to the Lagos office of the commission in four fully loaded buses. Pirated CDs seized during the raid was estimated to cost about 70 million naira.
Speaking to newsmen at the commission's office at Costain, Lagos, after the operation, the leader of the team and chief copyright inspector of NCC, Oluwafemi Ajala observed that, despite the on going campaign and media enlightenment programs embarked upon by the commission, a good number of people still engage in the dirty deal. He assured the general public that the commission is not relenting in their effort aimed at chasing pirates out of Nigeria.
"This is an on going exercise. Sometime last year, we were in this market, and yet, they still persisted in doing this business. Most of these works you are seeing here are foreign works, the assumption is that the right owners are not here, but that is not true. The Nigerian Copyright Commission represents all right owners, both local and foreign authors. So, there's no going back in the operation," he assured.
On how the commission discovered the existence of these pirates and their practices in the area, Ajala informed that, "we carry out various reports and we have intelligent team that conduct surveillance on some areas in Lagos. This particular market is not a place you can just come by; it's hidden somewhere in Lekki. I can tell you, we painstakingly investigated before we were able to raid the market this afternoon."
As for the arrested dealers, Ajala informed that the commission would follow due process in handling the matter, adding that investigation is still on.
"When they saw the law enforcement officers, a lot of them took to their heels. But we were able to make some arrest; we have about six of them here. We are a responsible agency and we are going to follow due process; the investigation has just started. In the style of the commission, where we find somebody culpable, we charge them to court," he promised.
Asked if the commission has plans to get to the root of the matter, by arresting the replicating companies and persons behind the business, Ajala replied thus: "This exercise is an on going one. About last week, we visited some CD replicating plants in Nigeria, because there is a regulations on ground now to ensure that CD plants in Nigeria are producing what is genuine. By the provision of the Copyright Law, someone who's importing, the distributor and the person selling, where found culpable, is liable to be charged to court.
"So, these ones are under the category of those who are selling. We are on the trail of those who are importing and I can tell you very, very soon, we will get them."
The Chief Copyright Inspector however called on Nigerians to stop patronising pirates as a means of discouraging them from the deal. "If there's no market, there will be no sales," he quips.
Commenting on the issue, the zonal coordinator of the commission, Lagos office, Emeka Ogbonna informed that, due to high level of piracy in Nigeria, the commission came up with the Strategic Action Against Piracy (STRAP) initiative. According to Ogbonna, the initiative is aimed at bringing all the functions of the commission to live. "Since we initiated STRAP, it has not been business as usual for pirates in the country. Recently we've raided several markets and outlets. Sometime last week, we closed down some replicating plants, reason being that, for us to fight piracy in Nigeria, we need to go to the source. These are the people that produce these works. And for sometimes now, these factories are not regulated, so it's difficult for the commission to even ascertain what they do."
To check the situation, the commission recently came up with the Optical Disc Regulation policy targeted at the replicating companies in Nigeria.
"The essence of the Optical Disc Regulation is to regulated disc replicating and duplicating plants. Under the regulation, there are some basic things these plants need to do as a preliminary process for the commission to carry out inspection to even determine, whether to register them or not. Some of the plants have complied, while some of them refused to comply. We've carried out raids, we've closed down some of them and we are still looking at those issues," the zonal manager said.
Meanwhile, almost all the arrested dealers claimed ignorant of the copyright laws, yet all of them declined to reveal their source.
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