JOIN DRIVERN TAXI AS PARTNER DRIVER TODAY!THE Zambia Music Copyright Protection Society (ZAMCOPS) has accused police officers at the Intellectual Property Unit (IPU) in Lusaka of leaking information to offenders before a seizure operation of pirated music is conducted.
Zamcops board chairperson Edify Hamukale said in a statement released to the Weekend Mail that there are also delays and operational inertia when it comes to enforcing the law on the hologram in Lusaka and the Copperbelt.
“We are, however, happy that they transferred a new and effective officer-in-charge at the IPU, but we now know that his efforts to transform the work culture in the anti-piracy crack squad is being frustrated by subordinates in his unit,” he says.
“How can we conquer music piracy if some of the officers at the IPU are alerting criminals every time there is a seizure operation to be done? This is unacceptable.
However efforts by Weekend Mail to get a comment from the police by the time it was going to press failed.
The Zamcops chief says his over 7,000 members are demanding the immediate transfer and disciplining of all the erring officers at Zambia Police’s IPU at the headquarters in Lusaka so that the fight against music piracy is not compromised.
Since the launch of the hologram on November 1 last year, the police have so far seized pirated music in Chipata, Katete, Nyimba, Nakonde, Kasama, Kapiri Mposhi, Mongu, Solwezi and parts of Lusaka.
The Ministry of Justice in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services issued statutory instrument number 100, which empowers police to enforce compliance on the hologram usage by music stakeholders without the need for a complainant.
Zambia Daily Mail
