Lagos — Piracy is the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc. It is also the unauthorized use, interception or receipt of encoded communications (as satellite cable programming) especially to avoid paying fees. Sampling too is considered piracy; therefore, radio and nightclub disc jockeys along with other "samplers" are not exempt from copyright laws. Each song they use must be authorized- even if the CD is made by a legitimate manufacturer.

Over the last two years, the music industry has fed the media stark statistics about "piracy," the act of copying digital music content to a blank CD, or uploading or downloading it from the Internet. According to various newspaper articles, an estimated 3.6 billion songs are illegally downloaded each month in the United States. In 1999, the music industry estimated that one in four compact discs of new music was actually an unauthorized copy. By the end of 2001, it was estimated that as many CDs were burned and copied as were bought. In Europe, blank CDs are outselling recorded CDs (although these blank CDs might have also been purchased for legitimate reasons, such as to back-up personal computer files). And since 1999, ownership of CD burners has nearly tripled. This trend of consumers sharing their music rather than purchasing it may be attributable to many factors, including the slow economy. However, the music industry seems to believe that the most likely culprit in this trend is the rise of digital music, i.e, free online file sharing, the growing popularity of CD burners and the dreaded Alaba marketers.

Piracy drives down the price of legitimate recordings. The number of additional authorized copies that would be sold is not equal to the number of illegally duplicated copies. The sound and materials of pirated music are also often of a poor quality and the product can't be returned. Pirates typically sell their wares at prices substantially discounted from street prices; the substantial price discounts induce some people to purchase the product.

Artists, musicians, songwriters and producers lose as a result of piracy. They don't get the royalties and fees they deserve and 95% of them depend on these fees to make a living. Their reputations also suffer when the fakes are of poor quality. Retailers and distributors also lose because their prices can't compete with those of illegal vendors, which mean less business and fewer jobs.?Record companies lose 85% of all the recordings issued and don't even make back their costs. They rely on the remaining 15% of recordings that are successful to subsidize less profitable types of music, to cover the costs of developing new artistes and to keep their businesses operational.

The explosion in illegal copying is affecting the entire music community. It has a very real and harmful impact on virtually everyone - from countless musicians, songwriters, performers, producers, recording engineers and others who use music as their platform. The industry loses over N5 billion every year to piracy worldwide.

A pirated CD has the following characteristics; The packaging has blurry graphics, weak or bad colour, the package or disc has misspelled words, the price is often way below retail value, the record label is missing or it's a company you've never heard of, it has cheaply made insert cards, often without liner notes or multiple folds and the sound quality is usually very poor. That is why it is advisable to buy from authorised stores and not from a street vendor or at a flea market.

In an act of self-defence to re-claim the industry from the pirates who hitherto have hijacked it, a coalition of groups and major stakeholders in Nigeria comprising the young and elderly went on hunger strike on August 25th and staged a big rally at the National Theatre in Lagos displaying placards with different messages condemning the evil act of piracy and demanding that the government intervene in curbing it. One of them even slumped at the rally. They have gone ahead to announce September 1st as a no music day in all media houses to further buttress their points. These measures have become necessary because of the daily thriving of the piracy business in Nigeria with reckless abandon on the part of the government. While we commend the efforts of the coalition, the question however is, will their efforts pay in the long run by reducing to the bearest minimum the activities of pirates in this country? Demonstrations and hunger strike alone will not stop piracy. We need solutions that will make piracy unprofitable for pirates

MD/CEO of Stingominia, a full cycle entertainment company, Ope Banwo in a release made available to Glitz Stage said the solution lies in a concerted and paralyzing civil action against known pirates to really make piracy recede back into the deep underground where it belongs in any civilized society. "It is an open secret that many members of the industry know who the big pirates and their abettors are. The industry knows which replicating plants are involved in this and they know the ring leaders of the piracy club in this country. In case of doubt, it is easy to investigate this with private or public investigators to identify the major pirates. Once this is done, it becomes very easy to take them down in a legal way without much fuss and without any hunger strike of civil disobedience", he said.

Banwo who shares same opinion with Glitz Stage said the best solution to piracy in Nigeria is suing the known pirates individually by different artistes whose works have been pirated in different court jurisdictions across the country. If these same 20 artistes repeat the action against 5 different pirates at the same time, we will have 100 individual lawsuits against these pirates. Each of these lawsuits can sue for N100, 000,000 in damages in each of the lawsuits. This legal offensive will overwhelm the pirates considerably as they now have to defend at least twenty lawsuits each. The most notorious areas of piracy is Alaba International Market and Ikeja. Investigations even revealed that their equipments are being imported into the country by some Chinese businessmen.

The largest record companies are developing anti-piracy technology to protect their copyrighted music against the information technology industry's movement toward increasingly user-friendly digital hardware and software. A few of the big five major music labels are currently experimenting with anti-piracy technologies designed to combat the on-line file sharing of their products through peer-to-peer networks. Both Sony and BMG have already implemented copy-protection systems, and Vivendi Universal once announced to add restricted-use technology to all of its releases. These copy-protection programs encode electronic impediments onto commercial CDs, which prevent the discs from being played on any device that is not a simple CD player.

Sony has developed its own anti-piracy technology, called key2audio. The music label announced in January 2002 that it had produced a total of 10 million discs for 500 different albums that could not be played on personal computers by using its key2audio program, which prevents consumers from listening to CDs on any type of CD-ROM or DVD player. A second version of the software, key2audio4PC, is a bit more lenient than key2audio in that it does permit listeners to play copy-protected CDs on their personal computer. However, the discs are encrypted to limit usage to a single PC. For example, once the CD is played on the consumer's home computer, she would not be able to play the same CD on her DVD player in the next room, or on her computer at the office. Downloaded music files may be copied from the PC hard drive to a blank CD, but that CD would likewise be playable only in the specific PC on which the copy was made from an authorized download.

Another music label is licensing anti-piracy technology from outside developers. BMG Entertainment began using the Cactus Data Shield anti-piracy program developed by Midbar Technology on CDs in the fall of 2001. Cactus is designed to prevent consumers from reformatting songs into MP3 files and burning copies, or making them available on file-sharing systems. The software prevents listeners from playing the discs on CD-ROM drives, which means that the music will not play on the Sony Play station 2, a number of car stereos and DVD players, or on PCs. The Cactus patent application states that the resulting playback distortion on an unauthorized copy would not only distort the sound, but would also be "potentially damaging" to amplifiers and speakers. The Cactus system also disables stand-alone CD burners.

While music copyright owners are taking action to protect their contents, the United States Senate is considering controversial legislation that would require IT manufacturers to implement safeguards against unauthorized copying of music but here in Nigeria, our National Assembly don't deem it fit to pass a bill on piracy. The laws and penalties against offenders are still stuck in the 19th century in this country. How will a pirate really be discouraged from piracy when the penalty for piracy is a token fine and ridiculously short duration of imprisonment in the alternative?