I find Mailo Zulu’s statement asserting that
hologram is a big flop premature, narrow and unfounded. His statement was
retrogressive and raise a lot of question about his motive i.e. piracy has
killed the music and film industry and every well meaning artist should support
the first ever mechanism devised by our government to fight piracy –logic!
Let us put this argument in context;
What is
piracy?
Piracy simply is the illegal duplication of
products without express permission from the author/artist/manufacturer/owner.
Piracy is theft.
In the
case of CDs/DVDs, how does piracy kill the local music and film industry?
Pirates have no regard for quality or the moral
conscience to consult, buy publishing rights or engage to benefit the artist/producer.
They produce a poor product (CD/DVD) without regard for quality hence their costs
are low, and in turn vend their ‘fake’ products at a price cheaper than the
price of the original product. On the market, the cheap pirated CDs/DVD make it
impossible for the artists, whose costs of production are high and will sell at
a higher price.
When the markets are flooded with cheap products,
the shelf life of an original becomes longer thus crippling the local industry.
For instance, for films produced on DVDs, locally
to produce movies on DVDs, the local artist or producer will spend about K10.00
per DVD and will maybe sell at K15.00 or K20.00 given the harsh economic
situation affecting our people, whereas the pirate will have his stuff produced
cheaply (Making production short cuts in disregard for quality) and will start
to sell the same product at even half the price, making it impossible for the
owners of the product to sell!
Because of this frustrating situation where people
can illegally reproduce a product with no law to countercheck, proceeds of
music or movies on DVD/CD to artist have been deemed impossible.
How does
the Hologram work to reduce piracy of CDs/DVDs?
The hologram is a unique ‘stamp’ issued by the
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Copyright unit on all legal products
(CD/DVDs) registered by the owners of the publishing rights. With this law, all
products without the hologram are deemed as fake, pirated, illegal. This
‘stamp’ make it possible for law enforcers to monitor and raid all
products that do not have the hologram,
the small fee of K1.00 per Holgogram/CD/DVD levied ensures that the police,
MoIB and ZRA have the financial muscle to monitor piracy and conduct raids, the
law stops the importation of products without the hologram at all borders and
entry points and it helps the consumers to differentiate or distinguish an
original product from a fake one.
In an environment (as will be the case in the next
few weeks) where the hologram is in full effect and the country has been rid of
all pirated CDs/DVDs, the producers and publishers will have the power to set
their own price, make money from sell of their art on DVD or CD and have enough
money buy equipment and set up facilities to set up studios to improve their
product.
The success of the Hologram means the resuscitation
or in fact the birth of the music and film industries!
It means that artists will not be reduced to
burgers doing shows at night clubs for K500.00 ($100), It means that their
works will have value and value invariably comes with quality.
What does
the Hologram project mean for the country?
The government is not getting much from the big
informal sector of DVD or CDs sales because it is currently a black market with
ghost and untraceable players. Hologram means regulation and formalization of
the media (Music and Films) publishing business in Zambia.
Fill in the blanks…
Is the
Hologram the one and only answer to piracy?
NO!
The hologram is the answer to ‘physical piracy’ in
this context pirated DVDs and CDs but not cyber piracy. Cyber piracy is
slightly more complicated than DVDs and CDs because music and movies can be
easily shared through flash drives or Internet downloads. But and a BIG BUT the
hologram empowers the Intellectual Property Unit of the Zambia Police with
funds to devise mechanism to curb cyber crime and so lets take one step at
time, after all a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!
Conclusion
In this complex age, there is no one answer to
piracy; it takes concerted efforts and a multi-faceted approach to the problem
i.e. attitude change by the consumers, hologram, consisted raids on pirated
products, tight border controls to reduce smuggling, innovative measures to
reduce on internet downloads of non royalty free products and so on and so on….
Perhaps Mr. Maiko Zulu can add to the list!
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