‘Piracy Is A Real Threat to Africa’s Creative Economy’

The adverse effect of intellectual property theft was on the front burner at the 2024 edition of MIP Africa, held recently in Cape Town, South Africa. The annual trade show and conference, which focuses on the television and media market in Africa, featured an extensive discussion session dedicated to the spiral effects of piracy on African creatives.

The session,  moderated by MultiChoice Group Channel Director: Premium Channels Waldimar Pelser, also offered insights from Chola Makgamathe, Chairperson of the Copyright Coalition of South Africa, Thandi Ramathesele, MD at Izwi Multimedia, and Tobias Maja, Senior Anti-Piracy Manager at Irdeto.

Speaking at the session, Ramathesele noted that “Piracy affects the entire film & television production chain, from executive producers to directors, writers, cast and crew – the perception that it’s okay to pirate content because big broadcasters have plenty of money is a complete misnomer.”  According to her, stealing content affects our culture, our society and mutes our voices. “It’s not about taking money from big broadcasters – it takes food out of the mouths of our creatives – how many of our artists die without a cent to their name?,” Ramathesele added.

Makgamathe pointed out that piracy has a wide-ranging effect on entire creative industries because there’s still a perception that ‘being creative’ isn’t a ‘serious job’ like law or medicine. “The most recent figures I can access show that the cultural creative industries across various sectors in South Africa contribute at least 3% of South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – R161 billion, which is equivalent to what the agriculture industry contributes,” she explained.

On his part, Maja said that content piracy across our continent is rife, largely because of outdated laws that aren’t fit to protect content in the digital age. “Outdated law makes it hard to prosecute people for piracy – and if they are prosecuted, the fine amounts to a slap on the wrist,” he says. “In many jurisdictions, law enforcement and even the judiciary don’t fully grasp that piracy is a criminal industry both making huge profits for itself and destroying the industries which help creatives pay the bills”.

He also disclosed that Irdeto had taken down 40 000 streaming links in 2024, adding that  “We need everyone on board – including Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to help us take down sites. We can only tackle this if we work in a multi-layered, interdisciplinary way – together”.

The experts also stressed the need for a massive education drive and collaboration between the production industry, broadcasters, the legal fraternity, businesses, advertisers, and marketing entities.  They submitted that partnerships are critical in helping raise awareness about piracy while urging the audience to pay for content to encourage creativity.

“On one hand, it’s heartwarming to know that your content is being appreciated by viewers on the other side of the world, if there’s no benefit to the people who created it, there’s no industry – and no more content to come. We love that viewers love our content and that’s why we make it – but having content stolen from us creates unemployment, impacts youth development and destroys the value chain. People will start to notice that the content they consume to relax or be entertained, isn’t there anymore – and it’ll be too late,” said Ramathesele.

The Africa-wide multi-stakeholder initiative, Partners Against Piracy (PAP), of which MultiChoice is a partner across our continent, is working alongside local governments and prosecutors to actively address the issue of copyright infringement. The initiative aims to strengthen government agencies through collaboration to facilitate information sharing, enforce IP laws more strongly and combat privacy.

MultiChoice South Africa signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Department of Justice and Correctional Services on 7 March 2024 that reflects the South African Government’s commitment to fight broadcast and content piracy, which continues to drain the fiscus of billions of Rands, annually. This agreement was the first of its kind on the African continent and marks a line in the sand between those who pirate content and those who create and disseminate it.

Content piracy involves the unauthorised acquisition, use, sharing or selling of copyrighted content. Put simply, piracy is stealing. If you are aware of any individuals or organisations involved in piracy, you can report them anonymously at +27 11 289 2684 or piracy@multichoice.co.za.