When most Nigerians hear about piracy, the first things that come to mind are audio and video CDs. Unknowingly to most people, piracy goes beyond these two areas alone; most people buy pirated books as much as they do discs. Against this background, Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), on Friday, said that it had, in the last six months, secured 28 convictions and seized about 11 containers of pirated goods worth N4 billion.
This was made known by the Director-General of the commission, Mr. Afam Ezekude, who pointed it out while visiting the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Lamorde, at the anti- graft headquarters in Abuja.
Also, the EFCC has said it would assist the commission in tackling rising wave of piracy and all forms of intellectual property rights infringements. According to a statement issued by the commission’s spokesperson, the EFCC boss described all infringements against intellectual property rights as economic crime since they are, most of the times, induced by monetary gains.
“Those that engage in copyright infringements do not do so for the fun of it, but for monetary gains and this makes it an economic crime,” Lamorde said. He then applauded the relationships between the EFCC and the NCC and called for concerted efforts to consolidate and strengthen existing ties.
Source: Tribune
