Entertainment
AN Afro-pop musician, Ishmael Lawal, popularly known as “Fireman’’ on Wednesday described digital piracy as the worst kind of theft in the music industry.
Fireman said that this was because the chances of the perpetrators being caught and punished could be very slim.
He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that music piracy was a huge problem confronting the industry.
He said that the act became more noticeable since musicians begun to post their music online.
NAN reports that music piracy is the copying and distributing of recordings of a piece of music for which the legitimate owners (composer, recording artist, or copyright-holding record company) do not give their consent.
According to him, it is no longer the process of burning music into Compact disc (CD).
He said that it was through downloading music from the internet and creating one’s own platform to sell such pirated works.
“We know that several people are engaged in piracy by not paying for music downloaded from the internet.
“They device means of getting away with their antics of using such music.
“Music piracy is principally motivated by self-interest; it is cheap, free and convenient, sometimes very little has been done to stop it,’’ he said.
He said that most musicians in contemporary time were relying on context as against lyrical contents.
“Creating and sharing music videos have become easy because anyone with a phone or camera and a voice recorder can easily have access to it,’’ he said.
Fireman stressed that there should be a law in place that would protect the players in the music industry and guaranteed sanity in the country.
The musician also said that the social media was lacking in protecting intellectual property.
“Digital piracy is the biggest threat to the development of licensed music sector and artistes investments because of those loopholes.’’
He said that record labels should start to ask why music lovers were not paying before downloading their favourite numbers.
“Music has never been cheap but there is still a perception that it is over-priced, so making it less expensive might not be the solution,’’ he said.
Fireman, however, said that the industry believed that parties in the digital economy have a responsibility to tackle piracy in all forms.
“Record companies should work with domain registrars and internet service providers (ISP) to put things in place that will make it difficult for people to pirate art works,’’ he said. (NAN)
– July 31, 2019 15:19 GMT
Tags: Digital piracy worst theft – Afro-pop musician
