E-Business
FG to Partner with Creative Industry to Fight Piracy
Federal Government has said it will work with relevant bodies to fight the piracy of intellectual property in the country, while saying the establishment of a National Endowment for the Arts will bridge the funding gap in the sector.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, minister of Information and culture, gave the assurance in Lagos on Sunday, at his maiden Roundtable with stakeholders in the movie industry, tagged ”Redefining The Nollywood Strategy.”
While enumerating the negative effects of piracy, which he said has become ”a monstrous disincentive to the creative industry,” the Minister noted that the government is committed to battling piracy, as exemplified by the President’s directive to the relevant agencies to reduce the menace to the barest minimum.
“My immediate suggestion is for us to declare piracy as an economic crime, have a regulatory direction, domesticate most of the international conventions on piracy, review and strengthen existing copyright law as well as make the punishment for copyright more stringent so as to discourage pirates.
“Perhaps a longer jail term with no option of fine and a speedy trial of suspects as we have in other countries will help in this fight. I think also that the entertainment industry is ripe enough to have a dedicated National Task Force on Piracy. We shall propose that and see how it all works out for the good of our cultural industries and the nation. We truly need a proactive enforcement of the copyright law so as to make the creative industry lucrative,” he said.
Alhaji Mohammed, who acknowledged lack of funding as another major challenge facing the movie industry, said the establishment of a National Endowment for the Arts would help tackle that challenge not only for the movie industry but the entire creative industry.
“Like the American model, we should at this time – when we are trying to streamline spending – think of having a properly established National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) that will service all genre of the arts. I have no doubt that the establishment of NEA will facilitate the introduction of Tax Rebates as incentives for sponsors of the arts and will give prime place to the arts and cultural sector in budgeting processes, since it has capacity to create massive job opportunities.
”The good news is that, as part of our massive social intervention policy, this administration has made available the sum of N500 billion naira to be accessed by creative people like you as well as artisans, market women, unemployed youths and others,” he said.
The Minister also expressed his readiness to convene a review meeting of the Nigerian Film Policy in order to fast-track the setting up of the Motion Picture Practitioners Council of Nigeria (MOPPICON) that will address most of the issues that have bedeviled growth in the industry, including distribution, regulation, financing, incentives for investors who sponsor the arts, visibility for artistes in matters concerning their trades, establishment of a film fund and how the fund will continuously be funded as well as the structural deficiency in the sector.
The Minister said that as part of the ongoing restructuring of the agencies under the ministry, the regulatory bodies in the ministry would be infused with purposeful, practical, dynamic and experienced leadership to drive the agencies in line with global best practices.
On the issue of distribution of movies, he noted that the present chaotic distribution network cannot achieve the desired objective, and promised to meet with the practitioners and the regulatory agencies to work out effective policies and strategies to tackle the distribution challenge.
“A possible strategy is for us to have an Investment Forum where we can attract real investment in the area of distribution of entertainment content. At the moment, we have very small players in that sector. We need to attract big corporations and we can do that through an investment forum, where we will show them what they stand to gain from investing in distribution, and of course we shall present incentives that will attract them.
”Besides, I am proposing that we hold an annual Film Market that will grow into a huge tourism event and will emerge as the biggest content market in the continent. Such events have potentials of attracting investors to an industry. We shall also look at the provision in the film policy that encourages the state to invest in the setting up of community cinemas in the 774 local government areas of the country,” the Minister said.
Alhaji Mohammed expressed dissatisfaction with the current practice in which television and cable TV stations operating in the country saturate the airwaves with foreign soaps, and advised them to fund the local production of movies and documentaries as obtained in other parts of the world where television and cable stations sponsor contents and provide airtime for them.
He harped on the need for all the stakeholders in the movie industry to come under one umbrella in order to articulate their problems and to better interface with the government, instead of the current situation where there are fragmented bodies and guilds in the industry
Responding on behalf of the Nollywood stakeholders at the meeting, Mr. Mahmood Ali-Balogun, commended the Minister for his indepth knowledge of the industry.
“You have enumerated everything that is bedeviling the industry these past years, even proffering solutions before hearing us,” he said.
Mr. Balogun, who is the Chairman of the Audio-Visual Rights Society of Nigeria (AVRS), called for the total overhaul of the regulatory agencies in the ministry and the appointment of people with requisite qualification, understanding, experience and exposure to man the agencies for optimal performance.
The event was attended by many Nollywood personalities including Ralph Nwadike, Saidi Balogun, Kate Henshaw, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe and Lancelot Imasuen.
E-Business
Cyber Resilience a Critical Priority for Manufacturing Amid Rapid Digitalization – Report Shows
As 60% of manufacturers race toward full digitalisation, cyber risk is increasingly manifesting as a business risk, according to a new global report by Kaspersky and VDC Strategy.
This means cybersecurity is not merely a compliance function, it is a cornerstone of production assurance, safeguarding uptime, quality, and operational continuity.
Manufacturers are modernising to deliver safer, more consistent and more cost-effective production and digitalization is moving fast: just 9% of organisations describe themselves as fully digital today, but 60% expect to get there within two years, according to the joint report by Kaspersky and VDC, titled ‘Cyber Resilience, Built for Manufacturing’.
That shift links shop-floor equipment, production lines and site operations to platforms such as Manufacturing execution systems (MES), Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and historians, turning many plants into cyber-physical systems (CPS), where a digital disruption doesn’t stay digital. It can slow production lines, quarantine work in progress, invalidate traceability records, or halt production outright.
What’s driving manufacturing digitalization?
Manufacturers are digitising for measurable operational gains, not novelty. Survey respondents identified the primary drivers of their digital transformation strategy as:
- Improving production output or efficiency (24%)
- Reducing operational or production expenses (15%)
- Enabling new strategic opportunities (14%)
- Improving cyber resilience (13%)
The same connected systems that unlock these gains, including MES, IIoT sensors, automated material handling, remote engineering access, also become the systems that determine whether production can be trusted to keep running.
Cyber risk is now a business risk
Cyber risk has evolved from a mere IT concern to a direct threat to revenue generation, as environments transform into cyber-physical systems. In these integrated settings, digital disruptions like malware no longer just affect data, they can cause unsafe operations, scrapped batches, and halted production on the plant floor. This shift highlights the urgent need to treat cybersecurity as a key part of operational resilience.
According to the report, nearly 60% of manufacturing organisations estimate that cyber incidents cause damages exceeding $1 million per event, with an average disruption of 15.3 hours. The most significant losses often result from production halts, missed delivery commitments, and penalties, rather than just forensic costs.
In this context, downtime links cybersecurity risks to overall business performance. Cyber incidents can reduce Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), strain staffing, and disrupt supply chains. Recovery involves more than system restore, it requires re-establishing confidence in process parameters, quality records, and traceability before resuming operations.
Mature cybersecurity programs now incorporate OT security into governance, focusing on metrics valued by production leaders such as time to restore, backup confidence, legacy asset coverage, and safe degraded operation. This alignment ensures cybersecurity supports continuous production and resilience, not just IT compliance.
However, challenges remain due to split ownership. While 59% of organisations’ IT departments manage security policies, these often overlook plant realities. Managing many security tools (44%) and OT patching issues (38%) show that cybersecurity must be embedded into daily routines of production, engineering, and quality teams. Only through such integration can cybersecurity effectively enhance operational reliability and defend against evolving threats.
“As manufacturing environments become increasingly interconnected, cybersecurity shifts focus from merely adding protective layers to ensuring the availability, resilience, and integrity of production processes. The goal is to minimise operational impact and speed up recovery, rather than solely preventing intrusions.
“Kaspersky offers a unified ecosystem that integrates IT, OT, and IIoT security, empowering manufacturers to pursue digital transformation securely. This strategy helps maintain operational continuity and reduces long-term cybersecurity costs,” comments Andrey Strelkov, Head of Industrial Cybersecurity Product Line at Kaspersky.
To implement this strategy, manufacturing companies can leverage solutions from the Kaspersky OT Cybersecurity Ecosystem, centered around Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity (KICS), a native Extended Detection and Response platform designed for critical infrastructure protection. KICS enables centralised detection and response to complex attacks across the entire industrial network, ensuring comprehensive visibility and security.
Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has commenced a forensic investigation into the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Lotus Bank and Hackerbella Ltd over alleged violations of data protection laws involving students’ personal information.
The investigation follows public complaints alleging that students’ personal data were used to open bank accounts without a lawful basis.
Dr Vincent Olatunji, national commissioner and chief executive officer of the NDPC, directed the investigation team to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the circumstances surrounding the collection, processing, use and disclosure of the affected students’ personal data.
The investigation will also determine the respective roles and responsibilities of UNILAG, Lotus Bank and Hackerbella in the alleged processing of the data.
According to the Commission, the investigation will assess the data protection compliance obligations of the parties under the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023 (NDP Act), as well as potential risks posed to the rights and freedoms of the affected data subjects.
The NDPC said the probe would cover several areas, including Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), the lawfulness and transparency of credit scoring or profiling activities, and the use of automated decision-making systems.
It will also examine the adequacy of privacy notices, data-sharing arrangements, lawful bases for processing, data minimisation and purpose limitation.
Other areas include data retention policies and the adequacy of technical and organisational measures put in place to safeguard the rights and personal data of affected students.
The Commission reiterated that institutions entrusted with the personal data of students, staff and other members of their communities have a heightened responsibility to ensure that such information is processed lawfully, fairly, transparently and securely.
The NDPC therefore warned educational institutions that are yet to comply with its existing data protection compliance directives to take immediate steps to achieve compliance.
The Commission said it would continue to exercise its regulatory mandate to protect the privacy rights of Nigerians and ensure that organisations processing personal data comply with the provisions of the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023.
Microsoft is planning to unveil its new Maia 300 AI chip this fall, potentially as soon as next month, The Information reported on Monday, citing people with direct knowledge of the plans.
The company introduced its Maia AI chip in November 2023 but has lagged rivals such as Alphabet and Amazon in scaling up its in-house chip efforts as it seeks to reduce its reliance on Nvidia’s costly processors.
Google began recognizing revenue from direct sales of its custom AI chips, called Tensor Processing Units, in the quarter ended June, while Amazon has also seen growing adoption of its processors, including its Trainium chips.
Microsoft has been in talks with chipmaker TSMC to secure manufacturing capacity for more than 300,000 units of the chip for delivery in 2027, according to the report. It is also looking to significantly ramp up production and persuade major cloud customers such as Anthropic to adopt the chip.
Microsoft ultimately aims to secure capacity for more than 1 million Maia 300 chips, though component supplies and ongoing capacity negotiations with TSMC could constrain its plans, according to the report.
It unveiled its second-generation Maia 200 in January, built by TSMC using 3-nanometer technology.
Microsoft packed the chip with a significant amount of SRAM, a type of memory that can provide speed advantages for AI systems handling large numbers of user requests.
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