The lawmaker representing Lagos East at the Senate, Adetokunbo Abiru, has expressed concern over the copyright protection in the country, saying a weak Copyright Act is a threat to the creative economy.

The senator stated this at the plenary while leading the debate on the Copyright Act Repeal and Re-Enactment Bill, 2021.

The bill, which has scaled second reading in the Red Chamber, has been referred to the Senate Joint Committee on Trade and Investment, and Judiciary, Human Rights, and Legal  Matters.

The committee is to report back to the Senate within four weeks.

The All Progressives Congress senator said, “Many Nigerian businesses have disappeared and many creators have died because of the harm occasioned by piracy and the weak mechanisms offered by the existing legal framework and successive government’s inability to sufficiently fund the Nigeria Copyright Commission.

“Time and again, stakeholders in the Nigerian copyright community have called for the amendment of the copyright law in line with the technologies and stipulate deterrent penalties but there has been no follow up in terms of amendments to the Copyright Act 1988 which was promulgated in 1999, under the military regime and more than 22 years ago.

“More significantly, the emergence of digital technologies revolutionized the creative economy as production and dissemination of creative works became more accessible and lent themselves to global exploitation beyond national boundaries.”

According to him, Nigerian Copyright industries comprising the creative industries ranging from Nollywood and broadcasting industry, have been emaciated by a weak Copyright Act, 1988 (as amended).

Abiru regretted that since the coming into force of the decree, Nigeria has yet to make a holistic review of its law for copyright protection, despite the many substantial advances in the industry in the country and beyond.

He maintained that for any country to progress economically, it should not play down the development of its initial resources.

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He added, “The only way to ensure the protection of original intellectual works is by tightening the legal provisions for the safeguard of copyright products, especially, liberalizing provisions in the extant copyright laws of the country to be able to accommodate products derived from the rapidly growing technology in the world”.

Some of the new provisions in the bill which were not captured in the principal act, he said, include making online/digital reproduction an infringement, prohibition of exporting of infringing works, and empowering internet and telecommunication service providers (ISPs) to remove or disable access to infringing content or links for ISPs to have rights to deal with recalcitrant offenders on their sites and platforms.

The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, who presided, referred it to the relevant senate joint committee while acknowledging the expected contributions of the bill the nation’s economy.