Booming Nigeria To Adopt One Of The West's Dying Ideas: 'You Must Be A Criminal' Copyright Levies

from the don't-follow-us,-we're-lost dept

Recently, we noted that copyright levies in Europe are looking more and more anachronistic for the high-tech world. It seems that Nigeria has not noticed this, since Afro-IP points out to us that the Copyright (Levy of Materials) Order 2012 has been approved there, which will bring them in for a very wide range of goods: The Director-General who disclosed this in Abuja, indicated that the materials regulated by the levy imposed by the new Copyright Order include storage media like Audio Cassettes, Mini Discs, CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray, SD Memory Cards, Video Cassettes, USB Flash drives, I-Pods and Photocopying Paper. Others are equipment and devices like Photocopying Machines, MP3 Players, Digital Juke box, Mobile Phones, CD recorders, DVD Recorders, Blu Ray Recorders, Computer External Hard Drives, Analogue Audio Recorders, Analogue Video Recorders, Personal Computers, Printing Plates, Printers/Printing Machines, Radio/TV Sets enabling recording, Camcorders and Decoders/Signal Receivers. The money is going to the usual places: "The Commission is expected to disburse the funds to beneficiaries who are essentially approved collective management organisations (CMOs) subject to retaining 10 per cent of the collected levy for administrative purposes of agencies that would be involved in the implementation of the scheme", he stated, adding, "The Order also permits the Commission to retain 20 per cent of the fund for anti-piracy purposes; and 10 per cent for promotion of creativity", he stated. It's particularly sad to see that exactly double the amount will be spent on "anti-piracy purposes" compared to the "promotion of creativity." That not only seems precisely the wrong way round but is regrettable in a country where it was piracy that helped build the hugely-successful local film industry.

It's obviously great to see African countries like Nigeria develop as an increasingly important player in the world of technology, but it's depressing to see its politicians repeating the mistakes of the West in this area. Imposing retrogressive levies do little to help local artists, but are likely to hinder the development of local hardware industries because of the extra costs they impose on purchasers.

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Filed Under: copyright levies, nigeria, piracy, taxes