Copyright enforcers raid Onitsha market, make arrests

Officers of the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) yesterday raided the popular Emeka Offor plaza at Onitsha main market in Anambra state and arrested five suspects for pirating and downloading selling music at the market.

The NCC stormed the market based on tip-off that the plaza was the major spot where traders download and upload music to customers MP3 and MP4 musical devices.

Items confiscated from the suspects include seven laptop computers, 10 memory cards, four phones.

Leading the operations was Augustine Alaro Amodu, Director of the agency’s Enforcement unit; he said that the suspects would be arraigned in court for violating copyright law and warned any Nigerian engaging in the illicit business to desist from it because the law will catch up with them.

“It is unfortunate that Nigerian music industry has grown so large but this incessant MP3 and MP4 has drawn the industry down, we are not happy that this ugly incident happens here and I assure you that from today, we will continue to do anti-piracy raid. We are doing it all over the country, we did it in Kaduna, Kano, Enugu today we are in Onitsha. We arrested five suspects and confiscated laptops and memory cards used for the incessant illegal business, we can see twenty in one and hundreds in one music in a MP3 or MP4 (one optical disc)” Amodu stated.