Abuja and Kaduna — The emerging Nigerian Copyright Commission framework will reposition Nigeria's creative industries for greater growth and competitiveness, the Director General Afam Ezekude has said.

Ezekude made this declaration last week at the opening of the Stakeholders Forum for Information and Communications Technology Industry in Abuja.

The forum, which is being organised for the music, broadcast, academic institutions, publishing, film industry, government institutions and users/publics, is part of efforts aimed at harmonising priorities of various interests in the emerging intellectual property regime.

He said the new regime, which will be used to update the Copyright Act for the digital age, will also facilitate new innovation and new models of access to knowledge as well as encourage and reward new forms of creativity.

"The goals of the reform process therefore is to update and upgrade the Copyright Act for the digital age; to facilitate new innovation and new models of access to knowledge; to encourage and reward new forms of creativity; to enable Nigeria's creative and cultural industries to adapt and leverage new technological platforms for distribution and enforcement of rights in global markets; and to improve the system of copyright administration", he said.

He noted that the new regime, which will improve the overall copyright administration in Nigeria, will enable the country's creative and cultural industries to adapt and leverage new technological platforms for distribution and enforcement of rights in global markets.

Also speaking the vice chairman of the Expert Working Group (EWG) of the reform of the copyright system, Prof Funmi Arewa stated that a well developed copyright legislation will assist Nigeria's economic development.

She noted that copyright has become a source of income generation for many developing countries like China, Brazil, India and Argentina.