NCC threatens to come down hard on pirated book dealers in 2021

The Director-General, Nigeria Copyright Commission (NCC), Mr John Asien, has said that there shall be stricter enforcement of the relevant copyright laws as from 2021 to ensure that Pirates are pushed out of business.

He made this disclosure at the just concluded 39th International Convention of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) in Ilorin, and further stated that the end of pirates has come as it shall no more be business as usual for them and their cohorts as a new modus operandi would be in use, including online and in physical space, to ensure that they stop selling pirated books.

According to Mr. Asien, “For us at the commission, we are more than committed, by next year, we will be focusing more on enforcement and we are going to do that in all nooks and cranny of Nigeria.

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“That is why from next year, it can never be business as usual, because the loss to piracy is in billions, lives are lost. There are so many authors who are well known, but when they are sick, we have to be begging for donations; some die in that condition just because of what piracy is doing to them.

”We are going to use different strategies and working on different platforms, both online and the physical space. This is because we must address this problem head on and that is a commitment from the NCC.

”Most authors are just satisfied that their books are mentioned, those who are lucky may get one or two prizes. No author at the end of his journey looks back and is ever happy that the copyright system has helped him to make so much.

”At least daily, one container is moving out with pirated books. We are working together with the Nigeria Ports Authority on how to detect these pirated books. When that is done, it will be easy for us to begin to address and bring down the piracy level”.

What this means

The successful enforcement of the relevant copyright laws by the NCC (Nigeria Copyright Commission) would highly create sanity in the market space and as well as encourage authors to write more books knowing fully well that whatever revenue accruable from such books comes directly to them.

This will be a good opportunity for higher quality books to be flooded in the market as well as create employment for most professionals of the book publishing industry.