By MUHAMMAD ADAM

The Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) has arrested and arraigned seven suspected and notorious pirates in Court.

Mr. John Asein, Director General (DG) of the NCC, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria

(NAN) on Sunday in Yola, where he will present a copyright certificate to a prominent stakeholder in the state.

Asein said that the suspects had “terrorised” authors and owners of other intellectual works in the country.

He said that their arraignment followed intelligence reports on their activities.

“The suspects are not just ordinary people, they are people with huge volumes of piracy works and we have charged them to Court.

“Piracy kills and Nigerians are losing billions of naira yearly to it,” Asein said.

He said the commission is currently working with some federal enforcement agencies on some suspected and targeted areas in the country.

He said activities of pirates are on the increase, adding that their ungodly activities had seriously affected and crippled many creative and intellectual works in Nigeria.

He noted that the many citizens are patronising pirated materials, either directly or indirectly.

“There’s the need for Nigerians to change their attitude and begin to distance themselves from pirated works. From records available, a lot of Schools across Nigeria patronise pirated books,” he lamented.

He appealed to Nigerians to always report any suspicious pirate activity to any of the commission’s offices or any security operative.

He described paucity of funds, equipment and manpower as the major challenges affecting effective delivery of services by the commission. (NAN)

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