Barely three weeks after the release of the highly anticipated 2face Unstoppable Int’l Edition album, three shop owners and one street hawkers have been rounded up for selling pirated copies of the album.
The audio CD of the album which sells at N1000, retail price, and are available only in high brow shops were non-surprisingly found on hawkers in the Lagos Mainland territory.
In a surprise street raid of Maryland, Yaba and Obalende CD retail axis by a crack team of men of the enforcement unit of the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) and men of the Nigerian Police Mobile Force, four of the hawkers were nabbed while many others scampered to avoid arrest.
The four men are currently being held in detention as investigation continues to ascertain the source of the bootleg CDs, the replicating outfits, the jacket printers and the marketers behind the crime.
Meanwhile, the zonal manager of NCC Lagos, Mr.Emeka Ogbonna sounded a note of warning to the pirates that it is not going to be business as usual, urging them to desist from their nefarious act or face the full force of the law.
This is a novel development and a new dawn in the concerted fight against piracy and the right owners have vowed to make the raids a continuous exercise to rid the industry of undesirable elements.
With the ongoing detention and trial of the hitherto seemingly untouchable ’’King of Pirates’’ who was caught sometime last year, there is no doubt that NCC in conjunction with other relevant enforcement agencies is poised to hunt down every pirate and other intellectual property infringers wherever they operate nationwide.
