digital <\/a> piracy, which the government says threatens the country’s digital economy.<\/p>\nThe Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) and key industry players have joined forces through the National Stakeholder Engagement on Anti-Piracy to strengthen efforts to address the problem.<\/p>\n
The UCC on Tuesday hosted a forum to develop strategies to combat digital piracy, with participants from government, law enforcement and the private sector discussing ways to improve coordination and enforcement.<\/p>\n
The initiative comes as the UCC continues to raise concerns about the impact of illegal content distribution, unauthorised streaming platforms and copyright infringement on Uganda’s broadcasting, telecommunications and creative industries.<\/p>\n
“Piracy is no longer merely an intellectual property issue,” said Nyombi Thembo, executive director of the Uganda Communications Commission.<\/p>\n
“It is a critical economic, technological and national development challenge that threatens the very foundations of Uganda’s digital economy.”<\/p>\n
Thembo said Ugandan creators invest their talent, broadcasters invest in quality programming and telecommunications operators spend significant amounts on digital infrastructure, but those investments continue to be undermined by piracy.<\/p>\n
He said the damage extends beyond lost revenue, discouraging investment, stifling innovation, distorting fair competition and depriving the government of essential tax revenue.<\/p>\n
“Furthermore, it directly harms citizens by exposing them to cyber threats, fraud and identity theft through unauthorised digital applications,” Thembo added.<\/p>\n
He said the ultimate goal of this week’s engagement is to lay the foundations for a structured National Anti-Piracy Coordination Framework.<\/p>\n
“By bringing together regulators, law enforcement, technology companies, copyright holders and tax authorities, we can collectively strengthen enforcement, improve information sharing and harness technology to protect our creative ecosystem.”<\/p>\n
The UCC estimates Uganda has lost more than $100 million to digital piracy, while government tax revenue has declined by an estimated $25.3 million.<\/p>\n
Digital piracy in Uganda is primarily governed by the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act.<\/p>\n
Penalties range from seven to 10 years’ imprisonment and\/or fines of between Sh40 million (about $10 700) and Sh50 million (about $13 400).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nyombi Thembo, executive director of the Uganda Communications Commission.(Image source: UCC) Uganda is stepping up efforts to combat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[58],"tags":[7420,22182,7732,71056,15254,3958,191,153,410],"class_list":["post-332078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uganda","tag-copyright","tag-cybercrime","tag-digital-economy","tag-digital-piracy","tag-intellectual-property","tag-nyombi-thembo","tag-ucc","tag-uganda","tag-uganda-communications-commission"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/116923171455074589","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n