The strength of Media and entertainment is one to reckon with in the 21st century, looking at the role music and movie production play in the economic growth of developed nations of the world such as USA, France, Canada, Great Britain, etc. In the USA for instance, several releases of the Bureau of Economic analysis and the National Endowment for Arts have shown over the years that in recent times Hollywood and related ventures add over $500Billion annually to America’s economy. To this wise, Harnessing and increasing the potentials of the Movie and Music industry of a Nation is indispensable to national development and significant economic growth in this age. No wonder developed nations continually restructure their media and entertainment industry to boost profitability and revenue generation capacity.

Despite the plague of piracy that bedevil our entertainment industry in Nigeria, Nollywood has continually generated revenue not less than 100 Million Dollars since 2012 until now, most of which result from the theatrical distribution of contents. It is safe to say that the amount lost piracy every year is much more than that realized by players and stakeholders in the industry. Hence, putting an end to piracy by creating a sound framework for media distribution will unarguably increase the proceeds from the industry by more than double while also improving the standard at the same time.

The Alliance of Nollywood Guilds and Association (ANOGA), an umbrella body for the Nigerian movie industry, has announced that it has found a solution to piracy, one of the problems facing the movie industry.

This was disclosed during a meeting of the association which held last Friday in Lagos.

The body came up with a resolution to tackle piracy in the movie industry.

They resolved that the solution to the challenges experienced by practitioners in the industry lies in the framework designed by the media distribution networks limited (an organisation based in Surulere, Lagos- Nigeria which specialises in providing world class physical and digital distribution systems for music, films, video, books, software, etc).

The company is trusted to provide an efficient and effective distribution system for the Nigerian movie industry.

The group announced in a communique signed by ANOGA president, Victor Ashaolu: “That the alliance of Nollywood guilds and association, ANOGA, has unanimously endorsed the Media Distribution Networks (MDN) project framework as designed by Media Distribution Networks limited and officially entered into a MoU with the framework for and on behalf of the Nigerian movie industry.”

It also revealed that the ANOGA has also entered into an MoU with the Media Distribution Network limited specifically to aggregate for and on behalf of its members with the Nigerian interbank settlement system (NIBSS) concerning the digital distribution of creative on the online platform.

“In addition, the Media Distribution Network Limited also appointed ZENITH BANK PLC as their LEAD BANK in the process of integrating the MDN project with NIBSS and harmonizing payment to content owners directly,” the group said in the statement.

“The umbrella body unanimously endorsed the coding and tracking framework as proposed by the MDN Limited and opened by the Global Standard one (GS1). This will form part of the coding, tracking and logistics framework of the MDN project.

“ANOGA however calls on all stakeholders in the telecommunication and broadcasting industry, digital distribution platform and all federal government relevant agencies and parastatals should take note of this new and progressive development in the film and entertainment industry in Nigeria.”

SOURCE: http://thenationonlineng.net/group-endorses-firm-solution-piracy/

Cc: Lalasticlala, Mynd44, Seun.