AN APPRAISAL OF THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF CRIMINAL INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT: A FOCUS ON PIRACY.

ABSTRACT

Copyright is an aspect of Intellectual Property that protects or seeks to protect one’s work (Literary, musical, artistic, sound recording, cinematographic film and broadcast) from being reproduced or distributed without the owner’s permission or license. Unfortunately, Nigeria has failed to appreciate and utilize the benefit of having a well structured Intellectual Property rights System. The Intellectual Property rights of people are often times overridden, hence, depriving authors, manufacturers and producers of the economic benefits of their Intellectual work. This has alarmingly impeded the nation’s Intellectual potentials. For the purpose this thesis, major emphasis is on Piracy which is the common method adopted by various individuals to infringe of the copyrights of authors. This thesis looks at the laws that have been put in place by the Nigeria Government to curb this immoral act. It goes further to look at the criminal infringement of Intellectual Property and how the Nigeria Copyright Commission is fighting such, including the Commission effort to combat anti-piracy and other laws (if any) that have been put in place by the Nigeria government to help in reducing the act of Piracy in Nigeria. Recommendation are also proffered in this work.

Keywords - Copyright, Criminal Infringement, Piracy.