The Nigerian Copyright Commission, NCC, has seized three shipping containers of 3,000 cartons of pirated books with a conservative market value of over N300 million.
The Director-General of the commission, Dr John Asein, disclosed this in a press statement made available to newsmen on Sunday in Abuja
He said the containers were intercepted at Onne Port, Rivers, in collaboration with NCC enforcement partners – the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, and the Department of State Services, DSS.
He disclosed that the copyright of the pirated books belongs to frontline Nigerian publishers: Africana First, Bounty Press, Evans, Learn Africa, Macmillan, Metropolitan and University Press Plc.
“Our main headache used to be with locally printed books which are easy to identify due to their poor production quality.
“But, we have since seen a surge in the importation of pirated books, especially from Asia with quality, competing with their originals.
“Many of these pirates who are agents of foreign printers now have the audacity to come into Nigeria to scout for businesses.
“Sometimes they share lists of their pirated stock with prospective customers in Nigeria through rogue networks.
“In some cases, the imports are compromised, and the documentations doctored to deceive enforcement agencies,” he said
