According to Transerve Managing Director, Mr. Orapo Cyprian, its mission is to explore technology to boost productivity and profitability.

Director-General, Nigerian Copyright Commission, Mr. Afam Ezekude

At a time that piracy has crippled many Nigerian film makers, Lagos-based Transerve Disc Technology Limited has unveiled a new anti-piracy alert.

While the battle against intellectual theft has defied many efforts by regulatory bodies and other stakeholders, Transerve believes that the new devices are capable of turning the table against pirates.

The set comprises applications such as DVD 5 and DVD 9 replication, as well as a glass mastering stamper. Another application in the pack is the Job Alert Management System designed to alert the copyright owners

 

According to Transerve Managing Director, Mr. Orapo Cyprian, its mission is to explore technology to boost productivity and profitability.

Cyprian says,, “Apart from setting benchmarks by expanding the frontiers of excellent products and services in the optical media industry, we adapt technologies to meet our customers’ needs. JAMS alerts our customers on all stages of production and track all our production processes from the comfort of their homes, offices and cars on- the- go through their electronic mobile devices, laptops and computer. This alert is similar to bank account alerts you receive. This is transparency in action.”

When the device was recently inaugurated in Lagos, it was a hopeful club of producers, regulators and other players in the entertainment industry that applauded Cyprian. This was expected because pirates have eaten deep into the flesh and soul of an average music and film producer in Nigeria. While the film industry is, for instance, said to be the second largest in the world – coming after India’s Bollywood and America’s Hollywood – a sober calculation would reveal that it is intellectual property thieves that are taking the largest share of its fruits.

So bad has the situation become that some films now get to the market before the producers officially release them. Apart from the fact that pirates cheaply release  movies, musical albums and songs in collections, some of the producers who seek succour in showing their works in cinemas are also becoming confused. While some of them claim that the cinema operators prefer foreign films, there are indications that a few movies have been leaked to pirates through some forces in some of the cinema outfits.

Indeed, the situation is so bad that a good number of the film makers now find it difficult to release their works – whether to the market or cinemas.

“When a film now sells for as low as N50, because it is the pirated type, you can well appreciate the fact that our industry is indeed in trouble,” popular producer, Tunde Kelani, had once remarked.

At the inauguration of the Transerve’s anti-piracy apps held at Golden Tulip Hotel, Festac Town, it was thus not surprising that it was in the presence of the Director-General, Nigerian Copyright Commission,  Mr. Afam Ezekude, and his counterpart in the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board, Mrs. Patricia Bala, that veteran actor and producer, Kanayo O. Kanayo, called for a special anti-piracy police squad.