NCC Inspect, Sensitizes Bookshop Owners on Dangers of Piracy in Adamawa
From Umar Dankano, Yola
The Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) has conducted its annual routine sensitization campaigns on the dangers and illegality of piracy to bookshops owners in Adamawa state.
State Acting Coordinator of the NCC, Mr Yusuf Ibrahim while leading his team to various bookshops in Jimeta-Yola at the weekend expressed gratitude to the zeal exhibited by the bookshop owners in making themselves available when ever the Commission desire to have interface with them for betterment of the industry.
Yusuf and his team went round and sensitized the book business owners by physically visiting their individual shops to inform them that the commission was at their business premises for inspection and monitoring of pirated materials with a view to protecting the intellectual asset (property) of original owners who worked hard and published their books legally.
Yusuf said that the exercise was more of a yearly routine for monitoring compliance by markers though the national headquarters of NCC Abuja directed state offices to conduct this very exercise involving stakeholders like the media and security outfits and send report with dispatch.
“We are doing more of education and enlightenment without enforcement (raid) this very season. As a copyright protection Agency saddles with the responsibility nationwide to ensure that book industry is properly policed.
“It is very essential because creative industry is what Nigerians most oftenly depending on recently because we have a teeming youth population that is highly creative,and if we don’t encourage them, there will be a serious problem as the creators are there for business.
“They take their time, have sleepless nights and produce a work while someone sit somewhere at a local spot and make copies for sale, virtually the work will be in vein.So actually there is need to protect them.
“We are doing our best in that direction as there is no society free of piracy.All we are doing is to reduce it to bearest minimal”.The Coordinator reiterated.
He enjoys them to desist from any act of piracy warning that there are stiffer sanctions against defaulters especially those with dubious intentions warning that the long hand of law will surely catch up with them.
In their separate responses, bookshop owners like Mr.Ekene Ofojitu of Great Achievers Bookshop,Osita Augustine Okafor of Bright Austin Bookshop and Mr.Chibuke Anselm of Tropical Bookshop Ltd. welcomed the exercise noting that it would add more sanity in the creative industry.
Our Correspondent in Yola reports that the NCC team inspected and sensitized more than ten famous bookshops along Bishop Street, Galadima Aminu express way and inside Jimeta Ultra Modern market among others
