Book Piracy as a Criminal Business: Upturning the Apple Cart

Abstract

“The Nigerian book publishing industry has an annual books sales volume of one hundred million genuine and pirated copies of books sold per year in Nigeria. At an average unit price of one thousand naira per copy of each book sold, this translates into one hundred billion naira in book sales realized from the sale of genuine and pirated copies of books sold in Nigeria per year. At a profit-sharing ratio of 1:2:5:2 for the Nigerian book publishing industry, the copyrights commission will receive ten billion naira in Government tax revenue income, authors will receive twenty billion naira in royalties payments, the publishing houses will earn fifty billion naira in company profit and the book vendors will earn twenty billion naira as commission on books sold in Nigeria.”