The President of the Theatre Art and Motion Pictures Practitioners Association of Nigeria, Bolaji Amusan, has revealed that prominent entertainers in Nigeria, including musicians, actors, film makers, producers and directors, were planning to march to the National Assembly to protest the continued pirating of their products.
Popularly known as Mr. Latin, Amusan described the Nigerian Copy Right law (2004) as weak and not strict enough to fight pirating of movies in the country.
The actor said this while speaking at a press briefing to herald the Association’s 2021 Conference billed to hold in Abeokuta with theme, ‘Film as a Tangible Asset’.
The conference, which holds between December 16th and December 18, 2021, will gather about 5,000 actors and actresses.
Speaking on the challenges facing members, he urged the National Assembly to enact a strong law against the pirating of movies in the country so that practitioners would enjoy the fruit of their labour.
The theatre practitioners’ President said the current copyright law was treating piracy as a bailable offence, lamenting that the offence was attracting a amount as fine.
He called on the National Assembly to enact laws that would place severe punishment on the pirates.
He said, “I have said it at different fora that the only way for we, the practitioners to enjoy the fruit of our labour is for the National Assembly to enact a very strict and strong law that will protect us.
“The current law against piracy is a very weak law. When a pirate is caught today, you take him to the police station. At the end of the day, they grant him bail, take him to court. They grant him bail at a very ridiculous amount.
“We are planning on that because we have so many guilds and associations in Nigeria, but we have one umbrella body; we are trying to come together with the heads of various Guilds.
“Piracy is like cankerworm; it’s like cancer eating deeply into the fabric of the creative industry and if you don’t try to kill it, it will kill the industry. We are working as elephants and we are eating as ants, a time will come when we will not be able to eat as ants.”
