By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan.
The Ibadan Zonal Manager of the Nigerian Copyright Commission, Mrs Bisi Ogundiran has hinted that 10 suspected pirates with confiscated bags of pirated works are now in the commission’s net in Ibadan.
Mrs Ogundiran dropped this hint in Ibadan while addressing journalists on the activities of the commission in the last few days.
According to the Zonal Manager, seven of the suspects were arrested for illegally downloading copyrighted works, while the remaining three were arrested for selling pirated books.
“They reproduced other people’s creative work and sell at cheap prices, depriving the owners of the benefit from their creativity. This heinous act has led to the extinction of some artiste in Nigeria. If California in America could generate huge revenue from the film industry, imagine what the nation would have generated without piracy,’’ she said.
The Zonal Manager pointed out that piracy is presently constituting a menace to Nigeria’s economy, adding that many were feeding fat 0n the illegal reproduction of other’s intellectual properties.
Emphasizing that the commission had on several occasion
sensitise book sellers on the implication of exploiting people of their intellectual or creative property, Mrs Ogundiran
declared that the essence of the enforcement and arrest was to get culprit prosecuted to serve as deterrent to others.
She then cautioned Nigerians against the purchase of pirated books and join the commission in stamping out piracy from Nigeria.
