Nollywood is arguably a force to be reckoned with globally in the
movie industry and has a great prospect but sadly most producers,
actresses; movie makers and directors find it so hard to get a lot of
money from as their gains are most times eaten up by piracy. Despite
the fact that a lot of resources is being put into production and
promotion, they end up not getting even half of the resources they put
into it.
There are so many factors responsible for this situation in the
industry, the government isn’t also helping in pumping money into the
sector or protecting it from piracy. However, this is about to end
finally in the history of Nollywood.
A new technology called ‘Nollycoin’ is about to eradicate piracy,
losses in the industry and it’s set to bring about a change in the
industry.
Nollycoin is an initiative powered by blockchain technology designed
to support the creation, publication, and consumption of Nollywood and
African movies as a cycle.
It is mainly to promote films produced in Nigeria and Africa at large
and create a good reward system for those involved in the production
of motion picture.
According to the CEO, Ope Banwo, a Renowned entertainment lawyer and
entrepreneur, “This is a system designed to ensure that once a
transaction is performed on our platform, every stakeholder registered
to get royalty gets what it due to him instantly unlike the
conventional system,” he said during the chat with the media
practitioners.
Explaining how the Nollycoin works, the former chief executive officer
of Dove Media said the Nollycoin is a token given to those who buy
into the Nollytainment project.
According to him, “When someone financially supports our Nollytainment
project, they are given what is called the token or Nollycoin, which
can be likened to anything like a bottle cap.
“At the time they were given such tokens, they are without value, but
when our films are released either in the cinemas or on our platform,
they can start having value because the tokens would be the only
‘currency’ to see the films either at the cinema or online.
“At this point, an imaginary value is apparently placed on the tokens
people people would have to use the Nollycoin to watch the film.
“When such happens, it is natural that those who have it will want to
exchange the tokens for cash and that is how it gets its value.
“This is the same concept every crypto currency in the world uses. The
search for it places value on it,” Ope Banwo explained.
He described the Nollycoin as a crypto currency or digital currency
that is used as a form of transaction on the Nollytainment platform.
Ope Banwo stressed that with Nollycoin, filmmakers do not have to
worry about access to capital, copyright/piracy, movie distribution,
royalty and others and the platform would solve those problems.
According to him, Nollycoin will provide top financial backing for
some of the best producers in the Nollywood, provide copyright
protection and solve piracy issues, provide universal means of
exchange for Nollywood movies, provide multi-level worldwide
distribution to justify financial investment, enable fair compensation
for collaborators in creating the movies, and provide access to
financing and capital to product qualitative movies.
Meanwhile, the digital currency has been made available to all at a
cheaper rate in the pre-ICO exercise, which started on March 1, 2018
and will close this week on Saturday. March 31, 2018.