Nigeria has issues with copyright infringement. This makes it more challenging for the sector to monetize services. Lockdown measures were required in response to COVID-19’s effects, which made it difficult for many media companies to pay employees and forced them to downsize due to their high operating costs. Social media and digital streaming services have significantly altered traditional media. Because of this, customers are becoming more sophisticated and wanting more choices in content. To keep consumers’ interest, business must constantly innovate. In order to keep customers interested, business must continually innovate. Despite tremendous effort and improvements to Nigeria’s intellectual property laws, piracy and IPR violations persist. Books and CDs that have been downloaded illegally are frequently sold openly. Piracy and counterfeiting actively impede the growth and development of the media and entertainment industries while being key barriers to the development of intellectual property rights in Nigeria.
The Nigerian Senate passed a bill in April 2022 that would make it illegal to broadcast any digital creation without the creator’s consent in an effort to bring Nigerian copyright laws into line with international best practices. In the case of criminal culpability and up to a year in jail, the consequences of this violation range from $217 to $4,339 (100,000 to 2 million naira). Inadequate infrastructure, such as erratic power supplies and bad roads, can provide serious difficulties for both music artists who lack acceptable performance venues and movie producers who must spend more time and money creating material. Promoters will need to take into account how much more expensive alternative power generation will be. The regulatory climate is uncertain due to significant actions made by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), such as a rule banning exclusivity.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the minister of information and culture, introduced the revised 6th version of the broadcasting code on August 4, 2020. The code aims to control the exclusivity of material, compel content sharing, and give NBC the authority to choose the prices at which content is sold to sub-licensees by rights holders. This requires Due to the forced sub-licensing of content and pricing regulation, the sector is less alluring for huge players who profit from exclusive content.
Value-added tax (VAT) and naira depreciation both provide difficulties for the sector environment. It is challenging for subscription service providers to complete their responsibilities to supply international material, which are paid for in dollars, due to the weak naira and scarcity of foreign money. MultiChoice Nigeria (owner of DStv and GOtv), the most popular subscription provider in the nation, will increase the cost of some of its DStv packages by 13% starting in September 2020. In April 2022, prices rose again, this time by an average of 17%. The second-largest subscription service provider in the nation, StarTimes, also implemented a similar increase in subscription prices, increasing costs by an average of 22% in August 2020 and an additional 31.6% for the classic package in 2021.
additional obstacles preventing the Nigerian media,Contract-related concerns, employment and labour law issues, defamation issues, and compliance issues are all present in the entertainment sector.