Microsoft Nigeria Wednesday held its Play Fair Day at its Lagos office to further intensify awareness around the dangers of purchasing and deploying pirated products.

The roundtable event themed: “Play it Safe” was an insightful and interactive discussion between panelists and journalists on the militating effects of piracy on the individual, businesses and economy, with a focus on proffering workable solutions.

Panelists at the event inlcuded Emmanuel Onyeje Microsoft Nigeria Country Manager, David Olaniyan software developer and 2011 Imagine Cup national winner, and Lanre Afolayan actor and singer, representing the entertainment industry.

Prior to the entrance of the Microsoft in the Nigerian market – Africa’s second-largest economy – there had been a wide spread use of unlicensed Windows software in the country both by private businesses and individuals.

Likewise, before the recognition of the potential of the Nigerian entertainment market by major music labels and movie industries, “there were no legal distribution networks for the western culture-hungry Nigerian populace,” a participant said.

This gap created a huge market for pirates and influenced the populace to accept pirated products, which has now grown to a nationwide network serving 160 million peoples, and unperturbed by the law.

Piracy now poses a huge problem to enterprise in Nigeria. The intellectual theft has also significantly reduced revenues generated by Nigeria’s budding literary and entertainment industries.

“50 percent of Nollywood products are said to be pirated,” the host, Yemi Orimolade, said.

Movie producers now churn out poorer movies working with lower budget since there was “little to take home” from the previous big budget works.

Microsoft through the event aimed to create awareness that piracy not only affects the economy, software developers, etc but also the consumer.

“Hacker organisations provide free softwares which the public download unsuspectingly while it gives hackers access to their data. We open millions of data to be stolen,” Onyeje pointed out.

He added that “more than 60 percent of users will get their PC infected” through the medium.

Solution

Mr Olaniyan enlightened that a major portion of the Nigerian public are not aware that piracy is criminal. He added that the media create continuous buzz on the illegality of the business.

“The mindset of the consumer is key to fighting piracy. There are those who don’t even know patronising pirates is wrong and criminal. They are not aware. We need to create awareness and elicit morality in the public,” he said.

MNet representative, Seyi Owolabi said Nigeria does not have strong anti-piracy laws and therefore cannot legally prosecute pirates.

“We are talking to the government,” Onyeje said. “…but you must keep sensitizing the public on the evils of piracy,” he stressed to the journalist.

Microsoft Corp., founded by world’s second richest man Bill Gates, is a global leader in IT and software and business solutions.