HomeOld_PostsCan we turn piracy into a fortune?

Can we turn piracy into a fortune?

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By Netho Francisco and Gracious Mugovera

PIRACY is becoming a growing tick that has continued sucking the lifeblood of the local film and music industry with little indications that the destructive creature can be eliminated easily, therefore, the main worry is on how to ensure the survival of these sectors.
Some pundits believe that it is high time local artistes stop being cry babies, but open their mind and think outside the box in initiating ways to deal with piracy.
Although it has been regarded as a scourge killing the artiste, piracy is also working as a tool of promoting artistes and productions that have failed to make it through the mainstream media.
Most notable being the local drama series Sabhuku Vharazipi, Fidelis and a number of local mucisians that have become more popular through illegal copyrighting using flash disks, CDs and Bluetooth.
Some of these artistes have become popular in both film and music industry through illegal selling and circulation of their works opening avenues of being widely known in different areas.
Most of these artistes have managed to attract a lot of audiences and realise some benefits for their works through live perfomances than selling products through DVDs and CDs.
During their last visit in Zimbabwe, Jamaican dancehall artistes, Bennie Man and Capleton (King Shango) said piracy could be beneficial in its own way since the more music people ‘burn’, the more it reaches a wider audience.
Through piracy, some artistes are able to reap fortunes and become popular in the Arts industry, but can piracy be turned into a fortune?
Film expert, Dr Rino Zhuwarara said despite piracy playing a role in giving exposure to the artistes, it has not yielded financial benefits to them.
He said piracy was killing the local film industry as pirates were pocketing huge earnings of the produced works at the expense of the artistes.
“To say that local film makers have benefited from piracy will be misleading,” said Dr Zhuwarara.
“They (film makers) can get value through exposure, but have remained poor because they get nothing from the earnings that are realised from the sale of their products.”
Dr Zhuwarara said there is need to establish a policy that regulates and promotes the funding of Zimbabwe’s film industry to reduce piracy.
“The informality with which we do things, breathes a culture that does not respect someone’s interlectual rights, a culture that does not give much attention to copyrights,” he said.
“The policy will also regulate how film products are exchanged and how artistes can be renumerated.
“A film industry would demand a certain level of regulation as well as promotion and specific means of marketing.”
Piracy is a worldwide problem, but it has become more rampant in developing countries due to limited availability of funds to acquire latest technologies used to make products that are difficult to duplicate.
“It is now very easy in terms of technology to reproduce someone else’s works and make money out of it,” said Dr Zhuwarara
“However it is also technologically posible to use incriptions so that it’s not easy to reproduce the DVDs.”
Most local artistes, said Dr Zhuwarara, do not have money and cannot afford to use incriptions that are needed therefore they become first class victims of piracy.
Another expert in the film industry, Trevor Chidzodzo said its time local film producers moved away from traditional ways of marketing their products such as using DVDs.
He argued that the continued advancement in technology which is used to promote piracy as opposed to the one which counter piracy would pose a lot of challenges in promoting films through DVDs.
“Promoting films through selling DVDs should be the last option for local film producers as the process makes it difficult for them to realise their dividends due to piracy,” said Chidzodzo.
“We should move away from that traditional way of marketing our films and promote them through cinemas where film producers can have better chances of realising the gains of their products.”
Due to flourishing of pirated cheap local and foreign movies in the country, the culture of going to cinemas had deteriorated in the country as most people prefer to watch movies at home.
Chidzodzo said there was need to change the mindset of locals towards the value of high quality products than prioritising cheaper and sub-standards inorder to promote a culture of watching movies at cinemas.
“There is a psychological warfare between local film producers and audiences who are not considering quality of the products they are buying,” he said.
“A lot of people do not have a sense of quality which undermines the value of producing DVDs.”
Other film industries such as Hollyhood, Nollyhood and Bollyhood have managed to grow despite piracy challenges due to adequate funding from the corporate sector.
Chidzodzo urged film makers to produce quality products that can compete at international level to boost their budgets by attracting funding from the corporate sector.
As film producers he said, we have to clear our names by producing quality products that can attract funding from the corporate sector.
Numerous artistes in the industry had blaimed the lack of stiffer penalties on those found practising piracy.
On his facebook page, Enock Chihombori one of Zimbabwe’s script writers and producers said the only way to reduce piracy is for the lawmakers to intervene.
“I know piracy cannot be stopped, but its effects on artistes can be minimised if our lawmakers help by instituting stiffer penalties on those found selling pirated poroducts in the streets,” he said.
In Zimbabwe, the anti-piracy taskforce was set up to curb piracy. It is comprised of various stakeholders including, the Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs, Zimbabwe Association of Recording Industry, Zimbabwe Republic Police and the Zimbabwe Music Rights Association among others.

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