Two Nigerians arrested for movie, music piracy

Two Nigerians have been arrested at the Kaneshie market by the police for selling pirated movies and musical CDs.

Augustine Ezinna and Jeremiah Emenugha William, were arrested during an exercise by the Copyright Office to clamp down on piracy in the country.

Francis Mensah Twum, Liaison for the Copyright Office speaking in an interview with Hitz at 1, said the arrest is one of many moves by his outfit to rid the country of pirates whose activities are killing the genuine works of producers.

Mr. Twum said, “Some of them are Ghanaian and foreign films that have been pirated and brought into this country which is killing the creativity and ingenuity of the Ghanaian music producer and musicians.”

This exercise comes few weeks after the Ghana movie and music distributors complained about being forced to close down their shops to venture into other businesses because of the increasing rate of piracy.

Mr. Twum said the exercise is expected to be replicated in the other regions of Ghana.

Several institutions attempting to curb the increasing spate of piracy, which is one of the major setbacks hindering the growth of the Ghanaian entertainment industry, seems to be losing the fight.

Mr. Twum, however, promises that the arrests is a giant step to curb the practice.

He added that the exercise which is in compliance with the Copyright Act 690 has existed since 2005 but has been dormant due to lack of logistics and funds.

The national anti-piracy monitoring team comprises the police, copyright office that supervises the implementation of the law, producers and musicians and composers.

The culprits are expected to be processed and dealt with if found culpable.