Do you watch Nigerian Movies?
I mean the Naija home videos. It is interesting to note that it is now possible to watch some Nigerian movies online. Some websites have uploaded some of the old Nigerian movies as streaming video on their websites. I made an attempt to watch one of the movies, but my connection was too slow. Well that is not the point I intend to make. I’m worried about the entrepreneurs operating in Nollywood!
My concern for writing this article is that, uploading an entire Nigerian home video on a website may have an adverse effect on the income of the producers and marketers of such Nigerian movie. The Nollywood artists have been fighting pirates and have consistently insisted that anyone that wants to watch Nigerian movies must be ready to pay for a copy of the Tape, VCD or DVD. They didn’t even like the idea of Rental Clubs even though they eventually agree to license some video clubs (I guess they had to settle for a compromise, because they couldn’t win that battle).
The Nollywood entrepreneurs, would have achieve better success if the factions that made up the industries have come together to fight as one united force. Forming clichés of smaller association such as different artists/practitioner and marketer associations for Nigerian Yoruba Movies, Nigerian Igbo Movies, Nigerian Christian Movies etc has not helped in any way.
I guess many of them in their small associations are not yet aware of the danger of loss awaiting them as internet connection becomes cheaper and affordable to more households in Nigeria. I’m just wondering what their reaction will be towards those websites offering Free Nigerian Movies. Do the Nollywood directors and artists have the capacity to fight such webmasters?
The internet community loves free stuff, but piracy kills business. When the effort of an entrepreneur is not rewarded, then there will be no motivation to continue the enterprise. If websites offering free Nigerian movies online continue to multiply and ISP improve their services, such that the internet users in Nigeria start enjoying true Broadband Internet connection, then the entrepreneurs operating in the Nigerian movie industry will lose much of their income.
I am of the opinion that now is the time for them to start the framework of safeguarding their investments and income. They need to appeal to the government to enact laws that will control the distribution of copyright ed movies on the internet. I know some will argue that even Hollywood has not succeeded in the fight against movie piracy, well, they may not have totally succeeded, but they have reduce the rate at which copyrighted movies are distributed on the internet. No well established website will offer a full streaming version of a copyrighted movie from Hollywood.
What is your thought on this? I will love to know in a comment. Thanks for visiting. You can get future update to this post Nigerian Movies by subscribing to Nigerian Entrepreneur RSS feed.
