One of the greatest threats to the international entertainment industry is piracy, now thought to be depriving the industry of as much as US$71 billion each year and now threatening millions of livelihoods and undermining the future of the industry.
This massive loss of income is more than the gross domestic product of whole geographical regions and the threat posed means the legitimate industry must take action to stop piracy and protect the rights of content creators and providers.
According to MultiChoice Zimbabwe publicity and PR manager Liz Dziva the MultiChoice network across Africa is throwing its weight behind Partners Against Piracy (PAP), an international campaign against content piracy.
PAP is a multi-stakeholder awareness programme helping fight the piracy menace by educating the public on the consequences of piracy and the threat it poses to livelihoods and to society as a whole. It wants to help Africa’s creatives earn a living from their talent, freeing them to continue creating relevant, entertaining content that reflects the culture and interests of the continent.
According to digital platform security specialist Irdeto, in Africa the sharing of content without paying licence fees is practised by individuals, web start-ups and even large organisations.
They deprive creators, licence holders and distributors of their earned income and this seriously threatens the sustainability of Africa’s creative sector.
PAP is already a pan-African coalition that was launched in Kenya in 2018, championed by the Kenya Copyright Board. It was also launched in neighbouring Zambia last year, championed by the National Arts Council there.
“MultiChoice hopes that here in Zimbabwe we can now emulate this collective action that we are seeing elsewhere, so that in the end everyone benefits and not just the people involved in piracy,” Liz said..
