The Nigerian Copyright Commission has arrested eight sellers of pirated books and sealed their shops in Sango-Ota and Sapon in the Abeokuta area of the state.
The enforcement team, led by the state coordinator of Ibadan NCC, Mrs. Oluropo Oke, accompanied by armed officers of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, made the arrests on Thursday.
They started under the bridge in Sango-Ota, where two purported pirate book vendors were apprehended along with hundreds of allegedly pirated copies of books, and their shops were sealed.
Later, the team moved to Abeokuta’s Sapon Market, where six more alleged pirate book vendors were arrested, their shops sealed, and several books seized.
Oke stated that the exercise is intended to send a clear message to people who choose to profit from the labor of other book publishers, leading them to depression due to debt incurred from not being able to recuperate their investment in their publishing works.
She said, “The essence of today’s exercise is to check the activities of pirates. Piracy is harmful to society. It kills the economy and encourages substandard goods. Piracy doesn’t allow right owners to benefit both morally and economically from the labor of their intellectual efforts.
“It discourages authors because they are denied the right to enjoy what they labored for.
“One of the statutory mandates of the Commission is to enforce the law, regulate, and prosecute copyright offenders. For today’s exercise, owners of eight bookshops selling pirated works were arrested.
She asserted that those arrested, if found guilty, would face the wrath of the law and urged booksellers to resist the temptation to patronize pirates and instead buy original books from the publishers.
“And if these offenders are found guilty, I can assure you they will definitely go to jail. This kind of offense, as specified in the Copyright Act, 2022, attracts five years of imprisonment.”
One of the suspects, simply identified as Tedus, who was arrested in Ota, expressed regret, saying he never knew the books were pirated, as he got them from one of his suppliers.