Help! Pirates Everywhere

The stark reality is that Nigeria wastes entirely too much money and time policing crimes like burglary, fraud, and bank-robbery when it should be doing something about piracy instead.
Piracy is the illegal copying, distribution, or use of intellectual property. It is such a profitable "business" that it has caught the attention of organized crime groups in a number of countries including Nigeria.
While piracy accounts for almost seven per cent of all global trade, Nigeria accounts for 91 per cent of the pirated international music CDs for instance.
It is so bad that the local music industry has actually called for a ban on the importation of music CDs.
It is not limited to music CDs. Business Software Alliance (BSA) said that about 36 per cent of all software in current use is stolen.
Software piracy also causes significant lost revenue for publishers, which in turn results in higher prices for the consumer.
The common types of piracy are softlifting, that is borrowing and installing a copy of a software application from a colleague and client-server overuse which is installing more copies of the software than you have licenses for.
There is also the hard-disk loading that is installing and selling unauthorized copies of software on refurbished or new computers and counterfeiting which is duplicating and selling copyrighted programmes as well as online piracy which typically involves downloading illegal software from peer-to-peer network, Internet auction or blog. (In the past, the only place to download software was from a bulletin board system and these were limited to local areas because of long distance charges while online.)
Piracy deprives Nigerian professionals of the revenue they have rightly earned and the government of the taxes that can be derived from that revenue reinvest in the economy.
It will take both political will and focused leadership to dislodge the cabal of Nigerians and some foreigners engaged in this illicit trade.
The fact most people caught are rarely prosecuted have emboldened the pirates. 
That is why the Strategic Action Against Piracy (Strap) initiated by Nigeria Copyright Commission (NCC) is a welcome development.
To serve as a deterrent, Nigeria should start equating piracy with burglary, fraud or bank-robbery.
Intellectual property owners are also advised to devise means of protecting their rights and should not hesitate to pursue their cases to logical conclusion.