The Nigerian economy is regarded as the largest in Sub-Saharan Africa and its fast growing tech, film and fashion sectors have become a strong exporter of culture outside the continent.
However, creative industry players, especially right owners in Nigeria have overtime not received the benefits that should accrue from their creative effort due to certain lapses in the industry.
To that end, top stakeholders of the audiovisual sector of the Nigerian entertainment industry have charged the leadership of the Audiovisual Rights Society of Nigeria (AVRS) to plug certain loopholes in a bid to reverse the negative trend.
The charge was made at the maiden stakeholders-users forum organized by the AVRS and held in Lagos which attracted big names in the motion picture industry like the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), officials of banks and other financial institutions, lawyers and captains of industry.
The AVRS was also charged to ensure that it provides efficient and cost effective means of not only representing the right owners but also ensuring that right users begin to pay for rights for the benefit of practitioners of the industry.
In his keynote speech at the event that was hosted by actor Richard Mofe Damijo, Director General of the NCC John Asein, called on the AVRS to evolve strategies to manage the impact of the growth in digital technologies that has ushered in a new wave of services, which has seen content consumption rise exponentially.
In his welcome address, Chairman of the AVRS Mahmood Ali-Balogun noted that while the AVRS may have recorded some progress it is still many steps behind, given that the CMO was licensed nearly five years ago and till date, the CMO is still far off licensing and distribution of royalties, which as he stressed ‘are the two fundamental purposes for which AVRS was established and approved as a CMO’.
Also, Chairman of the forum and former DG of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Emeka Mba, canvassed the need to deconstruct and reconstruct the Nollwood value chain in a way as to maximally secure any real measure of value to the industry practitioners.
He therefore charged AVRS to rise to the occasion and act in the overall industry interest. As Mba said ‘’the AVRS should be the last man standing; the industry insurance vehicle to ensure that a measurable portion of the value created by Nollywood comes back to Nollywood for the benefit of industry practitioners’’.
Other speakers at the event include CEO of Dragon Africa and Chairman Social Media Week Nigeria Obi Asika, the CEO of ACC Broadcast Multimedia Limited Dr. Don Pedro Obaseki, Sandra Oyewole, partner at Olajide Oyewole LLP and Chijioke Uwaegbute of Pricewaterhouse and Cooper.
They were all unequivocal in their submissions that AVRS must rise to the occasion especially if the overall intention is to empower the practitioners of the industry in the light of the rise in content consumption.Abo
