The Nigeria Copyright Commission has
raided the dreaded Alaba Market again. This time, its target was not
pirates who deal directly in music and video. Rather, it went after
those who tap digital satellite of some broadcasting organisations in
the country.
Alaba Market is notorious for piracy,
with many artistes having seen it more or less as the graveyard for many
musicians and film makers. It is believed to be the source of up to 60
per cent of pirated works in the country, an observation that various
regulatory bodies have corroborated at one time or the other.
According to the Head of the Lagos
Office of the NCC, Mr. Chris Nwokocha, a barrister, it had, in
conjunction with some stakeholders in the broadcasting industry, as
well as Nigeria Police, raided two pirated points for broadcast
materials (Digital Satellite Receiver Decoder) in two warehouses at
Alaba. At the end of the exercise, Nwokocha said, goods and equipment
worth N1.5bn were seized.
“Is very unfortunate that the pirates
are trying to eat what they have never sown. What some of them are
doing is that they engage in digital satellite receiver business. Once
they insert devices of any telecommunication network to the decoder,
they will be watching programmes for free without any payment or
subscriptions. We had to trace one of the suspects to his residence.
This battle against pirates in Nigeria is a continuous exercise and we
must do this to ensure that right owners are protected,” he noted.
He added that in the course of its
battle with pirates, the commission had, in recent times, secured 10
convictions in Lagos and over 40 convictions throughout the country.
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