Strengthen anti-piracy law - Franco urges Govt

CHIPPA LEGODIMO
Correspondent | Thursday April 7, 2011 00:00

 

Franco said that although he has been impressed with the sales of his new release he believes he could have raked in a lot more money if it were not for piracy saying he recently caught some Zimbabweans in Jwaneng selling pirated copies of his latest CD. Others were also caught in Maun.

'Hardly a month after I released this album already people are selling fake copies of it. The painful thing is that these people are only charged P200 admission of guilty and head straight back to make more. They are saying someone could be charged as much as P10 000 if it is discovered that he or she has a machine for reproducing those fake CDs, but the Zimbabweans just make them back home and bring them here to sell,' Franco charged.

The musician told Showbiz that although as musicians they were starting to recover from the effects of the economic recession, which hit the industry hard in the last two years, it was unfortunate that Zimbabweans, who normally sell pirated CDs and DVDs in shopping malls and car parks, were posing a serious threat to that recovery.

He said that he was impressed with the big crowd that turned up for the launch of his latest album held at Metsimotlhabe's Red Square, which, according to him, confirmed that people were still interested in music. 'I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at this discovery because in the last two years it has been hard to get a good crowd to any show, but the number of people who came for my launch somehow gave me the impression that we are recovering from the recession.

But then you think of these pirates and you have a new problem to deal with. Obviously no musician can rely only on shows to make money, you also need money from the sale of the CDs,' he said. According to the country's Intellectual Property Rights And Neighbouring Rights law, anyone who is found with a machine used for reproducing such pirates shall be liable to a charge not exceeding P20 000.

However, such a charge can only be imposed by a magistrate or a High Court judge as police are only allowed to charge up to P1 000 admission of guilt, according to Assistant Superintendent Balisi Joseph of Borakanelo Police in Gaborone. Joseph believes that there was nothing wrong with the law but that police should be given more powers to deal with this kind of crime.

'We have not taken any case to court. We have charged those we have caught with only the admission of guilt, which has a penalty that ranges from P50 to P1 000.But if we were to catch anyone repeatedly we would definitely take that person to court and then the magistrate would be the one to decide how much the culprit should pay,' Joseph told Showbiz.

Joseph admitted that the majority of people who sell fake CDs and DVDs are Zimbabweans and that as per the law they normally confiscate and destroy the copies. 'We often go on operations with officers from the Copyright office because we are really trying to fight this piracy, we cannot just wait for people to report to us.

Shop owners seem to be heeding the call, but as for those selling in car parks they keep doing it and like I said as police officers the best we can do is charge them and destroy the unsold copies.I believe the owner of the work can then take it from there and institute legal action,' Joseph said.