NCC arrest eight for allegedly selling pirated books, seals shops in Ogun

The Nigerian Copyright Commission has arrested 8 sellers of pirated books and sealed their shops successful Sango-Ota and Sapon successful the Abeokuta country of the state.

The enforcement team, led by the authorities coordinator of Ibadan NCC, Mrs. Oluropo Oke, accompanied by equipped officers of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, made the arrests connected Thursday.

They started nether the span successful Sango-Ota, wherever 2 purported pirate publication vendors were apprehended on with hundreds of allegedly pirated copies of books, and their shops were sealed.

Later, the squad moved to Abeokuta’s Sapon Market, wherever six much alleged pirate publication vendors were arrested, their shops sealed, and respective books seized.

Oke stated that the workout is intended to nonstop a wide connection to radical who take to nett from the labour of different publication publishers, starring them to slump owed to indebtedness incurred from not being capable to recuperate their concern successful their publishing works.

She said, “The essence of today’s workout is to cheque the activities of pirates. Piracy is harmful to society. It kills the system and encourages substandard goods. Piracy doesn’t let close owners to payment some morally and economically from the labour of their intelligence efforts.

“It discourages authors due to the fact that they are denied the close to bask 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 8 bookshops selling pirated works were arrested.

She asserted that those arrested, if recovered guilty, would look the wrath of the instrumentality and urged booksellers to defy the temptation to patronize pirates and alternatively bargain archetypal books from the publishers.

“And if these offenders are recovered guilty, I tin guarantee you they volition decidedly spell to jail. This benignant of offense, arsenic specified successful the Copyright Act, 2022, attracts 5 years of imprisonment.”

One of the suspects, simply identified arsenic Tedus, who was arrested successful Ota, expressed regret, saying helium ne'er knew the books were pirated, arsenic helium got them from 1 of his suppliers.