AZEEZAT IN PASSIONATE PLEA FOR PRIVATE COPY LEVY

Azeezat Allen who was at the summit as a member of the Board of Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) was reacting to the earlier presentations by retired Federal Director of Culture, Mr. Frank Aig Imokhuede and former Governor of Cross River State, Mr. Donald Duke.

According to Azeezat, the activation of the levy scheme will help reduce the effect of the unauthorized and debilitating acquisition of a large amount of music and movies without any payment, a situation threatening the survival of the Nigerian music and movie industries in the digital era.

She said that since the central objective of the summit was to look for alternative means in the cultural sector of boosting the national economy, the government must protect and enhance such undertakings like music and movies which have already proved their huge capacity to add to the nation’s GDP. She argued that to continue to allow the unabated copyright infringement engendered by digital technology would simply wipe out these industries.

The summit declared open by President Muhammadu Buhari had in attendance Alhaji Lai Mohammed who sat through the proceedings with his Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Ayotunde Adesugba, the Chief Executive Officers of practically every key cultural agency in the country, past ministers of culture and important officers of the National Assembly. Among the many private sector personalities present was COSON Chairman, Chief Tony Okoroji and General Manager, Mr. Chinedu Chukwuji.

Asking for the direct intervention of the Minister of Information & Culture, Azeezat insisted that if the government was serious about the development of the creative industries and the hundreds of thousands of jobs tied to the industries, the government needs to act without delay to save the industries from imminent annihilation. According to her, there is no way that the industries will survive with the free-for-all copying of music, movies and books going on in the country.

In recent times, there has been growing agitations across the creative industry for the activation of the private copy levy scheme. With the advent of new technology, millions of people in the country no longer buy music cassettes, CDs or DVDs. They obtain their music by freely downloading, file sharing or using blue tooth technology and deny owners of the works and the investors in music significant revenue. To compensate for this huge loss which threatens the survival of the creative industries, in many countries around the world, a small levy is charged on the gadgets used for this stealing of intellectual property. The money collected from the levy of such gadgets such as MP3s, MP4s, cellphones, memory cards, flash drives, etc, is distributed through the collective management system to the artistes, writers and producers whose music, movies and books are stolen.

About 23 years ago, Nigeria became the first country in Africa to provide for the levy in our laws. Sadly, since then, Nigeria has been unable to implement the scheme due to the nation’s choking bureaucracy. The situation has made several international and domestic investors to flee the country draining our nation of massive revenue, employment and growth. It is widely believed that the activation of the private copy levy will provide some succor to the creative industries.