FG to Partner With Creative Industry to Fight Piracy

The Federal Government has said it will work with relevant bodies to fight piracy of intellectual property in the country, adding that the establishment of a National Endowment for the Arts, NEA, will bridge the funding gap in the sector.

This assurance was given by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in Lagos last Sunday, at his maiden roundtable with stakeholders in the movie industry, tagged “Redefining the Nollywood Strategy.”

Enumerating the negative effects of piracy, which he said has become “a monstrous disincentive to the creative industry,” Mohammed noted that the government is committed to battling piracy, as exemplified by the President's directive to the relevant agencies to reduce the menace to the barest minimum.

He said: “My immediate suggestion is for us to declare piracy as an economic crime, have a regulatory direction, domesticate most of the international conventions on piracy, review and strengthen existing copyright law as well as make the punishment for copyright more stringent so as to discourage pirates.

“Perhaps a longer jail term with no option of fine and a speedy trial of suspects as we have in other countries will help in this fight. I think also that the entertainment industry is ripe enough to have a dedicated National Task Force on Piracy.

“We shall propose that and see how it all works out for the good of our cultural industries and the nation. We truly need a proactive enforcement of the copyright law so as to make the creative industry lucrative”.

Acknowledging that lack of funding was another major challenge facing the movie industry, the minister said the establishment of a National Endowment for the Arts would help tackle that challenge, not only for the movie industry but the entire creative arts’ industry.

He added: “Like the American model, we should at this time - when we are trying to streamline spending - think of having a properly established NEA that will service all genre of the arts. I have no doubt that the establishment of NEA will facilitate the introduction of tax rebates as incentives for sponsors of the arts and will give prime place to the arts and cultural sector in budgeting processes, since it has capacity to create massive job opportunities.

“The good news is that, as part of our massive social intervention policy, this administration has made available the sum of N500 billion to be accessed by creative people like you as well as artisans, market women, unemployed youths and others.”