President of the Directors’ Guild of Nigeria, Uche Agbo, has applauded the Nigerian Copyright Commission for its recent move against MovieBox, a widely known online piracy platform. Agbo praised the NCC’s enforcement action, which led to the suspension of one of the platform’s domains with help from the Nigeria Internet Registration Association. However, he expressed frustration that the operators quickly shifted to a new domain to continue their illegal activities.
On July 20, 2025, the NCC successfully suspended the original MovieBox site, which had repeatedly used clone and mirror websites to evade detection. Despite this progress, the operators swiftly moved operations to a different domain, posing fresh challenges to enforcement and raising new concerns for Nigeria’s creative sector.
In a statement to journalists, Agbo condemned this strategy, calling it a deliberate attempt to avoid punishment while continuing to exploit the work of Nigerian filmmakers, musicians, and digital content creators. He warned that piracy not only hurts the economy but also exposes users to serious dangers like malware, identity theft, and online fraud.
He urged the NCC, NiRA, internet service providers, telecom firms, domain registries, and financial platforms to block and disable the new domain and any related mirror sites. He also appealed to international copyright bodies to support Nigeria’s STOP campaign and help curb piracy globally.
Agbo reaffirmed the Directors’ Guild’s full support for the NCC’s efforts and pledged to work with authorities to dismantle piracy networks completely. He emphasized the need for Nigeria to stay firm in defending intellectual property and warned that constantly changing domains must not be allowed to shield piracy from justice.
