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The Nigerian music market is run by the youth and Nigerian hip hop music is gaining
recognition out of Africa.
In Africa youth stands both on the demand and the supply side
of the market since music is produced, marketed and consumed by young African. Indeed
young African consumers enjoy listening African music which is mainly produced and
distributed by artists of the same generation whose songs convey a strong expression of
African cultural identity. An average of 550 albums from different musicians is released
annually in the music sector (56% traditional music, 36% gospel, 18% afro hip hop).
Although fewer afro hip hop CDs are released annually, they are in more demand by the
market than the other genres and a hit can be easily sold at 3 million exemplars during the
first month of its release. Between 2005 and 2008, the number of Afro hip hop CD sold
jumped from 10 million to more than 30 million albums. Although online music
downloading for Nigerian music is relatively low, more and more Nigerian musicians
have their song on Apples-s I Tune which offers them more visibility the worldwide
music market. In a time of global recession, Nigerian musicians are earning money in
Africa and revenues come mainly from concert and endorsement by Nigerian businesses.
Piracy a scourge of the Nigerian film and music industries
The weak copyright protection discourage record label to invest in Nigeria.
During the
1980s many international record labels such as Polygram and EMI decided to leave
Nigeria. The lack of record labels coupled with the recent development of new data
storage technologies (e.g. Compact Discs, Digital Video Discs contrasted to Audio
Cassettes) provided an easy opportunity for unlicensed individuals, to copy and mass
produce records. An explosion of cultural expression that has accompanied the
establishment of democratic government in Nigeria has been exploited by pirates using
mass recording machines or importing pirated copies of songs and films from overseas.
Law enforcement is almost inexistent in Nigeria and jeopardizes the financial interests
from labels and film producers.
Powerful vested interests have been created with cartels
of pirates reportedly operating with the help of public officials, making it impossible for
individual artists to successfully challenge them or bring them to justice. The sheer scale
of piracy in Nigeria deters investment and re-investment in the industry and discourages
artists from becoming commercial. For instance, it is only in 2010 that the National Copy
Right commission established a Collection Management Organization which is formally
in charge of royalties’ collection. However, a copyright registration center is still missing
and would facilitate IPR law enforcement through prosecution.
As many movies producers and artists cannot easily register their works, rampant piracy
is pervasive.
In the movie industry by some estimates, for every legitimate copy that is
sold by the producer another 5-10 are sold by pirates. It is reported that Nigerian movies
are widely shown all over the African continent on national broadcasting networks
without payment of any royalties to the original film-makers. These challenges make it
difficult for producers to recoup their costs. Until the industry can capture a greater
proportion of the revenue stream it will be consigned to making low-budget, low-quality
productions and will not have the ability to scale-up its operations and provide a larger
number of well-paid jobs for Nigeria’s youth. In the music industry, piracy hinders artists
from generating revenue since copied CDs are largely available and sold at one fifth of