By Yemi Adebisi
The phenomenon, Copyright, was defined at a public lecture by Barrister Deji Olatoye as “the right which the creator of an original creative/academic work has against the whole world, usually for the duration of his/her lifetime and for some time afterwards, in preventing unauthorised acts of reproduction of such a work.”
Opinion poll among writers and other right owners indicated that infringement on the copyright of intellectual properties remains one of the fundamental challenges of stakeholders in the book and film industries in Nigeria.
Authors, publishers and other eminent creative artists have had cause over the years to count their losses on the menace of piracy and its antecedents.
In December 2013, the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) made a seizure of pirated books and educational materials worth a whopping sum of N20 million.
Zonal Manager, NCC, Lagos office, Chris Nkwocha, told the media that the container contained not less than 1,300 cartons.
“Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) in collaboration with Nigeria Customs Service intercepted, inspected and seized a shipping container containing pirated inspirational and educational books. Some of the books are best-selling American titles such as Daughter of Destiny by Kathryn Khulman, Me and my big mouth! by Joyce Meyer, The Midas Touch by Kenneth Hagin, Mysterious Secrets of the Dark Kingdom by J.P Timoons and the Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary,” Nkwocha said.
He said the container, which originated from China, was confiscated by the NCC in collaboration with officers from sister agencies such as the Nigeria Customs Service, State Security Service (SSS), National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the Nigeria Police.
The officers discovered that the shipping container contains numerous copies of pirated inspirational books and dictionaries belonging to various copyright owners.
He observed that the latest seizure is another indication of renewed efforts by NCC under its Director General, Afam Ezekude, to stop the activities of pirates in the country, adding that, “right owners should reap from their own labour and investment, and that eating from other people’s sweat and labour is not just a crime against the state but also against humanity and God.”
He said efforts are currently geared towards unmasking the identity of the importer for possible prosecution in line with the Copyright Act Cap C28 LFN 2004, warning importers of pirated materials and those who infringe of other people’s copyright that it is no longer business as usual.
It was observed that most books that took authors several years to put together were hijacked by pirates, printed and sold at rock bottom prices, thereby frustrating the effort of both the publishers and authors, the owners of the intellectual properties.
Most highly celebrated local and foreign films had also been pirated, living their owners in abject poverty while the pirates feed fat on their loots.
It would be recalled that the Director General, NCC, Afam Ezekude in March 2013, reassured the stakeholders that the Commission had put in place series of strategies to curb the excesses of pirates in Nigeria.
Though NCC appears to have been more articulate in the recent time in their intervention through periodic raiding exercise, right owners said the commission needs to be more transparent in the handling of their suspects after each seizure to convince the stakeholders that there is no foul play in the system.
For instance, on Wednesday, May 8, 2013, the Commission, in the company of members of the Nigeria Police Force and Nigeria media, stormed the premises of Emacon Print Limited, located at Gbagada , Lagos, suspected to be pirating books and allied materials.
The ground floor of the multi-million massive storey building stocked numerous books and sophisticated printing machines. The first floor, which also contained several printing machines, had several offices stocked with different raw materials like papers, inks among others. Some of the books cited during the raiding exercise, which were piled up in their hundreds on wooden plates include Frank Wood’s Business Accounting by J.O. Omuya (Learn Africa), Modular English Course for Primary Schools by S. O. Ayodele (Evans), Basic Technology for Junior Secondary Schools by Sowande and Adeoti (HEBN Publishers), A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Igbo Language with an English-Igbo Index by Longman Publishers, Basic Science An Integrated Science Course for Junior Secondary Schools by Ndu, Somoye (Longman), Orin Ihinrere fun Ilo Ijo, Workbook for ABC Stories by Nelson among others.
During the exercise, the chief executive officer of the firm, Bayo Ogundobe, challenged the NCC for the seizure of the books and onward loading into the vans, claiming he was doing a legitimate business.
“What is going on here? Why did you enter this factory without notice? You are doing the wrong thing in a wrong way. You are supposed to inform me that you are coming for inspection prior to this exercise. In fact you need to do your inspection thoroughly taking one area at a time. Of course, you know where to go for pirates but you won’t go there. You need to know that I am doing a legitimate business. I inherited this publishing firm from my father. We have been in this business for 40 years. I pay my tax and provide jobs for 60 workers in this place. How dare you stop this operation? Do you know how much we will lose today with this your operation?” said Ogundobe.
When asked on why he was producing books with copyright ownership of such companies like HEBN, Longman, Evans among others, he said it was these companies that offered his organisation an IPO because they could not meet up with the demand of their clients though he could not produce any document to back it up.
When contacted through telephone conversation, the HEBN Publishers sent the assistant sales manager, Olu Ayoola to confirm the claims. The 62-year-old man, Ayoola was rolling on the ground in tears on citing different titles of books belonging to his organisation that were pirated.
But contrary to the claim of Ogundobe, he said there was never a time that the company gave any organisation the right to print for them. “Whosoever that did this should be killed. We have invested so much in this business and I am shocked to see this. I was very emotional about this. This is intellectual stealing. We are losing royalty and withholding taxes to these pirates. We have rents to pay. We are not meeting up because these pirates are eating up the gains that supposed to come to us,” he said.
Another round of raiding exercise was performed at the Oshodi market same day and several people that were hawking pirated CDs and DVD were arrested and their goods confiscated.
Head of the task force unit of Yoruba Films Producers Marketers Association of Nigeria, Abayomi Adeniran, told the media that some of his colleagues have lost huge amount of money including their life as a result of the proliferation of pirates. He claimed that the havoc done by this group of people was “criminal.”
His words: “I have been sweating since morning. All these films that were seized just came out from the studio on Monday (May 6) and don’t forget that today is Wednesday. What they do is that they will go to the market on Monday, buy just one tape and go ahead and pirate it. Latest by Tuesday night, it will be in the market. Another evil they do is that they will combine about ten or more films together in one jacket. The film we sell for N220, the pirate sells it for N80. We went to bury one of our colleagues recently because he could not pay back the loan he got from the bank for the film he produced. He was sick for a while and he is dead,” he said.
Some of the films seized from Oshodi open market include Tomiwa the Driver, Omi Ata, Igba nbajo among others.
He appealed to the NCC to make the raiding exercise a continuous process, advising them to extend their visitation to Alaba market where he claimed there are more pirates including Mile 2 and Obalende.
Director of Enforcement unit, NCC, Augustine Amodu said the books which worth the sum of N4 million were seized during the exercise and that the CDs and DVD also worth the sum of N2 million.
“What worries us the most is when the people go on selling ten in one films especially of the locally made films. You can see the enormity of what we have today alone. A number of people have said NCC is not working but you can see this by yourself. How will our rights owners feed? I am using this opportunity to warn those people that are using MP 3 and MP 4 films to desist from this illicit act. We will continue to fight piracy. NCC will not hesitate to bring those implicated on this matter to book. Those people who are buying or selling these products are enemies of progress. People should stop patronizing the pirates,” he said. However, he promised on behalf of the Commission that Emacon Print Limited will be used as an example.
Though NCC claimed they had convicted a number of pirates, some of the authors and publishers who spoke with Sunday Independent in anonymity expressed their worries on the eventuality of such seizure and arrests. “I read about issues of the likes of Ogundobe and the rest in the papers but how many of them have been convicted? We hope the commission will sit up and be more transparent because the whole world is watching. Honestly they are better than before but they should not act ‘films’. They should be faithful and avoid soiling their hands in corruption as much as possible,” said an elderly Ibadan based foremost author.