Piracy & Recession: Affecting Nollywood Producers
Nollywood industry is one of the fastest growing section in the Nigeria economy. Over time, there have been release of 50 movies or more weekly, the Nigeria movie industry “NOLLYWOOD” makes tons of cash for the economy but just like every other sector the current recession affecting the Nigerian economy is also affecting the movie industry in Nigeria. That the Nigerian film industry is growing is not a doubt, but another issue that requires greater attention is the problem of piracy, which has been a major set-back that has eaten deep into the industry and may grind it to a halt. Although, the Nigerian government has laws against piracy and to that, there is a body to regulate the activities of movie producers and nollywood marketers in Nigeria, it remains a thriving business partly due to poor implementation of copyright laws, proper prosecution of offenders, and corruption in the governing agencies.
Over the years, movie makers have resulted in different targeted ways such as loans from banks, in-built movie adverts, brand marketing and PR services by big companies to generate cash to produce movies but the fear of piracy is still a big problem as some much is lost at the end of the day. During the Toronto International Film Festival, Kunle Afolayan and Genevieve Nnaji pointed that distribution is one of the major challenges that the Nollywood industry is faced with, and also, lack of adequate viewing cinemas and lack of investors coming into to the Nollywood industry.
At the midst of this challenges, so many movie marketers still maintain that the Alaba International Market, founded in the 1970s, located along the Lagos – Badagry expressway is the biggest threat to in the Nigeria movie market. It is by far the biggest electronics market in West Africa and thousands of people flock around it every day. People come from as far as Ghana, East Africa, Togo and Benin Republic. The market has a mixture of individual customers and retailers who buy in bulk to resell across West Africa. They buy a wide range of items — including computers, televisions, broadcast equipment, household appliances, video games, generators, security equipment, CDs and DVDs. The Alaba International market is where the basis of piracy starts from with illegal movie sellers’ mass production of movie content and selling them to the public, this has caused major loss to movie producers.
Similarly, the revolving face of technology in the world today has also brought about various ways in which movie content can be distributed on platforms like the “Okiki App” where movies can be kept by the content owners and yet be rest assured that the movies would not be pirated. This gives audience direct access to movies on their mobile phones and by so doing it will go a long way to ease distribution problems in the Nigeria movie industry and get Nigerian movies to a wider reach across Africa and around the globe.