The Senate on Tuesday moved to criminalize copyright offences by repealing and re-enacting the Copyright Act, 1988 to Strengthen the copyright regime in Nigeria towards enhancing the competitiveness of creative industries in the country.
The move would also support the Nigerian copyright industries, comprising of creative industries such as Nollywood and broadcasting industry, the music industry, the fashion industry, the book publishing industry, the art industry, and Nigeria’s emerging software and Apps industry
This was sequel to a bill moved on Copyright Act Cap C28 2004 and re-enact the Copyright Act 2021 sponsored by Senator Mukhail Abiru, (APC Lagos East) aimed at transforming the industries into a digital and knowledge-based global economy.
It also seeks to repeal the existing Act with a view for a holistic review of the policy and legal framework for copyright protection in Nigeria.
In his lead debate, Senator Abiru argued that if re-enacted, the legislation would consolidate on ensuring that the Copyright Act effectively protects the rights of authors to ensure just rewards and recognition for their intellectual efforts while also providing appropriate limitations and exceptions to guarantee access to creative works, encourage cultural interchange and advance public welfare.
It would also facilitate Nigeria’s compliance with obligations arising from relevant international copyright treaties, as well as enhancing the capacity of the Nigerian Copyright Commission for effective administration and enforcement of the provisions of the Copyright Act.
Other amendments sought by the Bill include the use of the term audiovisual works which accommodates today’s technology, more than the term cinematograph films, offer a dispute resolution mechanism, align Nigeria’s copyright law to what is suitable for Nigeria in line with the World Trade Organization Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement.
The document also sought to increase the penalties for copyright infringement, create new offenses such as aiding, abetting and attempting copyright offences will become, punishable, make online/digital reproduction an infringement (It amends the present definition of copy which currently means material copy and does not accommodate transient or non-permanent copy which is what obtains online); expand the bundle of rights copyright holders (for instance, copyright owners will have the exclusive right to make a work available online).
Besides, the law hopes to criminalize dealing in equipment that circumvent “anti-copying technology,” expand customs notice prohibition against the importation of infringing copies of literary, dramatic and musical works to infringing copies of all other works, and prohibit exporting of infringing works; and enable internet and telecommunication service providers (ISPs) to remove or disable access to infringing content or links to for ISPs to have rights to deal with recalcitrant offenders on their sites and platforms.
The Lagos lawmaker disclosed that “many Nigerian businesses have disappeared and many Nigerian creators have died because of the harm occasioned by piracy and the weak mechanisms offered by the existing legal framework and successive government’s inability to sufficiently fund the Nigerian Copyright Commission.
