A Bill proposing stiffer penalties for contravention of the Copyright Act on Tuesday passed second reading in the House of Representatives.
The bill, which seeks to amend the Copyright Act 2004, is sponsored by Uchenna Bede-Eke.
Leading debate on the bill at plenary, Bede-Eke said that it would protect intellectual property rights of artistes in the country.
He added that the proposed amendment of sections 20 to 39 of the Principal Act intended to provide stiffer penalty for contraveners and in turn serve as deterrent to others.
BedeEke said: “Section 20 (1) of the Principal Act is proposing N100, 000 to substitute N1,000 penalty for infringers and 10 years jail term instead of the current five years.’’
According to him, one of the challenges bedevilling the development of creative works of arts in Nigeria is piracy.
He said: “Nigeria remains the largest piracy destination in the same products ostensibly protected by the Copyright Act.
“This is due to a number of factors essentially bordering on the obsolescence and inability of the Copyrights Act to meet contemporary challenges in the protection of copyrights, particularly new genres of innovations.
“In Nigeria today, it is difficult for an artiste to recoup investment on a creative work because of the activities of pirates in the industry.
“There are cases where an artiste would see his work in the market before the official launch, hence pirates end up making more money than the creator of the work.’’
In his contribution, Edward Pwajork said that there was the need for security agencies to strengthen their efforts toward enforcing the Copyrights law.
Pwajork condemned the impunity with which thieves of intellectual works denied artistes their benefits.
Similarly, Chika Adamu said that an amendment that would provide stringent punishment for violators of the Copyright Act would bring sanity in Nigeria’s creative industry.
The Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, referred the bill to the Committee on Justice.
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