Techdirt. Stories filed under "nigeria"

Booming Nigeria To Adopt One Of The West's Dying Ideas: 'You Must Be A Criminal' Copyright Levies

Glyn Moody — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:36:00 PST

Recently, we noted that copyright levies in Europe are looking more and more anachronistic for the high-tech world. It seems that Nigeria has not noticed this, since Afro-IP points out to us that the Copyright (Levy of Materials) Order 2012 has been approved there, which will bring them in for a very wide range of goods:

The Director-General who disclosed this in Abuja, indicated that the materials regulated by the levy imposed by the new Copyright Order include storage media like Audio Cassettes, Mini Discs, CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray, SD Memory Cards, Video Cassettes, USB Flash drives, I-Pods and Photocopying Paper. Others are equipment and devices like Photocopying Machines, MP3 Players, Digital Juke box, Mobile Phones, CD recorders, DVD Recorders, Blu Ray Recorders, Computer External Hard Drives, Analogue Audio Recorders, Analogue Video Recorders, Personal Computers, Printing Plates, Printers/Printing Machines, Radio/TV Sets enabling recording, Camcorders and Decoders/Signal Receivers.

The money is going to the usual places: "The Commission is expected to disburse the funds to beneficiaries who are essentially approved collective management organisations (CMOs) subject to retaining 10 per cent of the collected levy for administrative purposes of agencies that would be involved in the implementation of the scheme", he stated, adding, "The Order also permits the Commission to retain 20 per cent of the fund for anti-piracy purposes; and 10 per cent for promotion of creativity", he stated.
It's particularly sad to see that exactly double the amount will be spent on "anti-piracy purposes" compared to the "promotion of creativity." That not only seems precisely the wrong way round but is regrettable in a country where it was piracy that helped build the hugely-successful local film industry.

It's obviously great to see African countries like Nigeria develop as an increasingly important player in the world of technology, but it's depressing to see its politicians repeating the mistakes of the West in this area. Imposing retrogressive levies do little to help local artists, but are likely to hinder the development of local hardware industries because of the extra costs they impose on purchasers.

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Dear Sir, I Am A Nigerian Prince And If You Believe That There's A Bridge I'd Like To Sell You...

Mike Masnick — Tue, 4 Sep 2012 13:34:00 PDT

I'm no longer surprised that people fall for Nigerian advance fee "419" scams. It seems that every generation falls for something along those lines. In the past, I've talked about the bogus story of Drake's fortune, which was the "Nigerian scam" of nearly a century ago. But what certainly has surprised me is how little the story really seems to change. Given how closely so many people associate "Nigerian prince" with "scam," you'd think that it would make sense for scammers to move away from such things, and try to find a story that is slightly more realistic. However, On the Media points us to a fascinating research paper by Microsoft researcher Cormac Herley, and a Wall Street Journal article about the research, which reveal why it still makes sense for Nigerian scammers to say they're from Nigeria:

It weeds out all the non-suckers.

Think about it from the scammer's point of view. With advance fee scams, they need to string along someone for a while. A live sucker can be quite valuable, but also involves quite a bit of work. So, for it to be worthwhile, they actually need exceptionally gullible people and by flat out saying they're from Nigeria, given how closely associated that country is with such scams, they quickly weed out the people who are probably smart enough to realize they're getting conned. Since the cost to them of spamming everyone is close to nothing, you may be confused about why you keep getting "Nigerian prince" emails, but they don't care about you. In fact, in ignoring those emails, you're kind of doing them a favor by not bothering them with time-consuming efforts that won't pay off.

As the WSJ piece notes, this highlights a potentially better way to deal with such scammers: waste their time. Of course, we've written about such scambaiters before, with 419 Eater being the most well known community. But this research suggests that, not only are such efforts amusing, they can be genuinely effective in harming the economics of such advance-fee frauds.

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How Piracy Created The Massive Movie Industry Success Of Nollywood

Mike Masnick — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:31:47 PDT

We've written in the past about how the three largest movie producing countries in the world are Nigeria, India and China -- despite the fact that all three have extremely high rates of infringement. It seemed to offer the perfect counterpoint to the insistence from the MPAA that high piracy rates automatically lead to the destruction of any form of movie industry. In fact, further research showed that the amount of piracy in Nigeria actually was a big part of the reason why Nollywood has been so successful. The ability to let "pirates" distribute their films in the most efficient way possible meant that the movies were distributed far and wide across Africa and established Nigeria as the place to go for movie making.

Of course, as we've seen through the history of the development of various industries, it's always after those industries are created and growing rapidly that the existing players suddenly want to ramp up intellectual property laws to stomp out new competition. This is true throughout pretty much the entire history of intellectual property law, and it shows that such laws are not -- as we're told -- about creating incentives to invest in these industries, but rather about keeping out the competition and setting up gatekeepers to lock things down for established players. The same thing is happening in Nigeria as well, as there have been new efforts to crack down on infringement, despite it being so central to the importance of the rise of the industry.

While we've covered all this before, Eric Crampton points our attention to a new research paper that digs even deeper into this story: The Rise of Nollywood: Creators, Entrepreneurs, and Pirates by Olufunmilayo Arewa. It covers much of the same ground as our previous reports, first noting the usefulness of infringement in establishing the industry -- which appears to employ more people than Hollywood. In fact, what's amazing is that while many developing nations focus on government subsidies, insisting that that's the only way to build a local film industry, there's almost no government support in Nigeria, yet the industry is significantly bigger than comparable countries:

The rise of the film sector in Nigeria runs counter to existing trends in the film sector in which developing countries, which produce 1.2 films per million inhabitant annually, lag developed countries, which produce 6.3 films per million inhabitants annually. At current Nollywood production levels, Nigeria produces approximately 6.7 films per million inhabitants annually. Bridging the developing country film production gap remains challenging, particularly because the optimal ways to create domestic film industries remain elusive in many instances. Prior to the proliferation of Nollywood films, at least one commentator suggested that government takeover of the film industry would be the only means by which Nigeria could develop a film industry.

Notably, although many countries have sought to incentivize particular types of film production through direct government funding, subsidies, or film protection schemas involving film quotas, many of these industries have not been commercially viable in the absence of subsidies or other support schemes. In contrast, Nollywood has created significant volume of local video film content with virtually no government involvement or subsidies. The success of Nollywood may in many respects be attributable to a lack of government involvement and its decentralized nature, which has permitted Nollywood participants to be highly entrepreneurial, adaptive and innovative. Nollywood now may employ as many as 200,000 people directly with estimates of indirect employment as high as 1 million. The market-driven Nollywood approach is less costly than existing models of film production and distribution and may offer a new model for developing countries that wish to develop domestic film industries.

In fact, part of that "market-driven" approach is to figure out ways to embrace and leverage widespread infringement. That helped set up rapid and inexpensive (to free) distribution and promotion of new films. It has also continued to drive interest in new films, as people want to keep seeing more, helping to keep the industry going.

That said, the report also talks about the new efforts to crack down on infringement, but notes that this might not make much sense. It notes, correctly, that "the battle to control piracy will not be an easy one," and that such an effort to ratchet up pricing may be futile. Instead, it suggests taking a more proactive approach to providing better services and to looking at better ways to monetize the movies -- including things like advertisements and product placement.

Discussions of the piracy problem in Nollywood are based upon goals for control of distribution that may simply not be viable for Nollywood given current institutional structures and manners of doing business. In addition to dealing with piracy and issues of control of distribution, Nollywood participants should undertake focused strategies to address varied business and legal impediments. The development course of Nollywood, which in fact increasingly moving to digital distribution outside of Africa, and events in other arenas, suggest that the battle to control piracy will not be an easy one. Further, to the extent that webs of unauthorized uses enmesh consumers and end users, seeking to impose desired pricing in the face of rampant unauthorized distribution, or even the possibility of such distribution, may be futile, particularly given broad nature of Nollywood distribution networks. This ultimately may mean that price reductions may be one way to deal with problems of piracy, particularly to the extent that Nollywood participants can effectively harness other sources of value. Nollywood participants thus far have focused to a significant extent on the value of Nollywood content, which may obscure other potential sources of value to Nollywood participants. For example, the network of viewers reached by Nollywood films may be valuable to advertisers and others who may be willing to pay to have access to such viewers. The value of these Nollywood networks may actually be far greater than the value of the content itself.

The report also notes that "Discussions about the future of Nollywood should seek to move beyond discussions of copyright and piracy to fundamental reconsideration of a broader range of business and legal issues." I'd argue that applies to nearly all copyright discussions. Not just those in Nollywood.

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Nigeria 'Celebrates' Its Recording Artists With 'No Music Day'

Tim Cushing — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:39:07 PDT

If you happen to be Nigerian or passing through Nigeria and are looking for a little traveling music or something catchy enough to push the voices in your head out of the way for a few moments, don't bother turning on your radio. September 1st is "No Music Day" in Nigeria, a new tradition (since 2009!) seeking to "draw national attention to the widespread infringement of the rights of composers, song writers, performers, music publishers and other stakeholders in the music industry in Nigeria."

As someone who only inadvertently listens to the radio, I can safely state that for many people, a day without a radio broadcast is like Thursday. Or Friday. Or other days of the week. However, for those that do, September 1st will be the day that most will find something else to do rather than listen to an assortment of talking heads speaking loudly about the abuse of the aforementioned traveling music, all the while packing metaphorical 7-piece luggage sets for their listeners' suprise guilt trips. Perhaps, for example, you might listen to music via a computer or personal listening device which isn't subject to the whims of people accusing you of being a criminal. And, let's not get started discussing the possible irony of this effort probably pushing more people to spend their day listening to unlicensed music, rather than licensed music on the radio...

But it's not just the listeners that are due for a long miserable day of self-righteousness. If you happen to be on the "supply" side of the "debate," you'd better eat early and often. In fact, you probably should have started carb loading or whatever a couple of weeks ago. (Apologies for the late notice.)

No Music Day 2009 was preceded by a huge rally of Nigerian artistes held at the National Theatre in Lagos and a weeklong Hunger Strike campaign waged by top Nigerian artistes across the nation.

All in all, it sounds like a great day for alleged pirates (yep, that would be everybody listening) and literally starving artists alike. If you can't make it to Nigeria in time for the "festivities," keep in mind that it only happens once a year, which should give you plenty of time to make plans to be elsewhere during "You're-All-A-Bunch-of-Thieves-Fest 2K12."

Call me crazy (or worse), but couldn't this be handled in a much more "fan friendly" way? Instead of spending the day talking about everything that's wrong with the Nigerian music industry, wouldn't it be better to play some songs and invite the artists to talk about their work and what it means to them? This could be a chance to give smaller artists a chance to be heard and grow their fan bases. Maybe musicians connecting with the public would be more productive than artists treating their audiences like selfish children who need a once-a-year time out.

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Nigerians Looking To Crack Down On Movie Piracy, Despite Thriving Nollywood Movie Industry

Mike Masnick — Tue, 5 Apr 2011 03:36:04 PDT

One thing that's common as you look through the history of intellectual property law is how stronger IP laws almost inevitably lag increases in creative or inventive output. Of course, this flies in the face of everything that we're told about intellectual property law, about how it's necessary to incentivize such creativity or inventiveness. In fact, if that were the case, we wouldn't see such creativity showing up in places with very lax or non-existent laws. And yet, time and time again we do. For example, we've highlighted how the movie industries in Nigeria, China and India are thriving, despite very lax laws and enforcement. In fact, with Nigeria, we've discussed how widespread "piracy" was a large part of what helped "Nollywood" succeed.

So what's happening now? Once again, after this explosive outgrowth in creativity, then people look to put in place these laws. Loricnet points us to the news that in Lagos, Nigeria, officials have been looking at technological solutions to "deal with" the issue of infringement. Officials are reviewing five separate technologies, and the "winner" will be rolled out for use by city officials. At least some of the solutions on the "short list" appear to be focused on providing new business models and greater sharing, rather than using technology to "block" certain activities, but some of them appear to be the same old DRM.

I'm not sure why politicians are getting involved here, but it really does highlight how, once again, intellectual property law is not about incentivizing creation (that already happened without it), but rather about protectionism for those already there. It's the same thing we've seen in the past. After there's an outburst of creativity, those who were there first don't want new competitors, and they run to the government for greater protectionism against competition, and the preferred tools: greater IP laws and greater IP enforcement. Sad to see the same thing happening yet again.

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How 'Piracy' Helped Establish The Dominance Of Nigerian Films

Mike Masnick — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 09:05:57 PST

Earlier this year, we wrote about Kevin Kelly's fascinating look at the movie industries of India, Nigeria and China, which represent the three largest film industries in the world. Yes, all three are larger than the US. And all three are places known for extremely widespread "piracy." Given that Hollywood insists that "piracy" kills the movie industry, it certainly seemed worth noting that these three countries had hugely thriving movie industries despite (or perhaps because of) widespread infringement.

The Economist has an article looking much more closely at the Nigerian movie industry, known as Nollywood, which produces an astounding 50 new movies every week. Now, some will immediately point out -- correctly -- that these are much lower budget than our traditional Hollywood picture, but apparently, many of the movies have pretty good plots and acting -- and they seem to be doing pretty well across all of Africa (not just Nigeria). In fact, the report notes that the infringement may be a big part of why Nigerian films are so successful:

The merchants curse the pirates, but in a way they are a blessing. Pirate gangs were probably Nollywood’s first exporters. They knew how to cross tricky borders and distribute goods across a disparate continent where vast tracts of land are inaccessible. Sometimes they filled empty bags with films when returning from an arms delivery. Often they used films to bribe bored guards at remote borders. The pirates created the pan-African market Mr Akudinobi now feeds.

Once again, this is really a recognition of a point that has been many times around here: copyright infringement is often just a more efficient distribution system -- and if you can figure out how to use that distribution mechanism to your own benefit, you can be much better off. In fact, it sounds like many are doing that, and the massive success of Nigerian movies have opened up all sorts of new opportunities for movie makers:

African diasporas in the West pay good money to see films from home. BSkyB, a British satellite broadcaster, and Odeon, a cinema chain, both show Nollywood classics. Consumer-goods companies offer sponsorship deals.

That wouldn't be possible if the movies weren't getting so much attention. On top of that, for those who will continue to claim that the quality of these movies must suck, it appears that the quality is likely to improve. That's because with so much competition, moviemakers are looking to stand out from the crowd, and one way to do that is to improve your product. In other words, just as we've said for years, you've got a situation where competition is leading to innovation and higher quality, even in the absence of copyright protections... Funny, then, that some still insist that without copyright (or without strong copyright enforcement), no movie industry could exist.

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US Convicts Nigerian 419 Email Scammer

Mike Masnick — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 08:52:30 PDT

For years, the Nigerian government has insisted that it's cracking down on the notorious advance fee 419 scammers out there, but the scams continue. And, yes, they come from places other than Nigeria, but it really has become something of an industry in parts of Nigeria. There are even songs mocking dumb Americans who fall for the scams, and Nigerian officials have also been known to blame the victims of such scams. Indeed, many (though, not all) of these scams do play on the victim's own greed, so there's some element of questioning just how much of a "victim" they really are. But what's amazing is how totally taken in by these scams most victims are. In fact, there are stories of the victims of these scams who -- despite being told that it's a complete scam -- still believe that they're just one step away from getting the stolen money owed to them.

So it's interesting to see that the US gov't has now convicted a Nigerian citizen of running such a scam. Apparently, he used a single email address for over ten years (miklymyx@yahoo.com) and was able to convince lots of strangers to simply hand over money to him, promising to get them a fortune in return. What's amazing isn't just the convincing part, but the fact that he was able to use that one email address for so long so effectively.

Every time we see stories about people falling for Nigerian 419 scams -- including Harvard professors and Ronald Reagan's neuroscientist -- we're amazed that there are still people who fall for these types of scams. However, it seems these sorts of scams have worked for generations. There's a fantastic book called Drake's Fortune, that covers an almost identical scam that was massively successful for a small group of scammers about a century ago. Somehow, it seems likely that we'll still see people falling for these scams in another century as well.

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If 'Piracy' Is Killing Filmmaking, Why Do Nigeria, China And India Have Thriving Movie Businesses?

Mike Masnick — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 10:01:00 PDT

We keep hearing from Hollywood folks that "piracy" is killing the movie business, yet there seems to be little evidence of that. The number of films being made each year continues to grow, and the box office keeps setting attendance and revenue records. But what if unauthorized copies were even more rampant? Kevin Kelly noticed that three countries that are normally considered "hotbeds" of unauthorized copies all seemed to house the largest movie industries:

The three largest film industries in the world are India, Nigeria and China. Nigeria cranks out some 2,000 films a year (Nollywood), India produces about 1,000 a year (Bollywood) and China less than 500. Together they produce four times as many films per year as Hollywood. Yet each of these countries is a haven, even a synonym, for rampant piracy. How do post-copyright economics work? How do you keep producing more movies than Hollywood with no copyright protection for your efforts?

This question was pertinent because the rampant piracy in the movie cultures of India, China and Nigeria seemed to signal a future for Hollywood. Here in the West we seem to be headed to YouTubeland were all movies are free. In other words we are speeding towards the copyright-free zones represented by China, India and Nigeria today. If so, do those movie industries operating smack in the middle of the cheap, ubiquitous copies flooding these countries have any lessons to teach Hollywood on how to survive?

Not everything he finds will be considered a "good" thing -- since part of the answers involve things like underground markets and organized crime laundering money -- but that shouldn't take away from some of the key points. In all three countries, he found that (of course) the "pirated" versions (usually sold as video CDs) really acted as promotion for going to see the film in a theater -- one of the few places in those countries where air conditioning is available. Some might point out that this isn't an issue in the US (any more), but if you take a step back there is a larger point: if you provide a valuable experience, people will go. In Nigeria and India, it may be air conditioning, but in the US it could be lots of other things: high quality food, comfy seating, better sound, etc. Second, he found that the industries in all three countries made money by licensing their movies to TV stations who were desperate for content -- suggesting that there are almost always other channels where revenue can be obtained.

Another point that he found was that the movie makers recognized they needed to "compete" with unauthorized copies, and priced things accordingly -- so that the price wasn't all that different than the unauthorized VCDs. Now, that did mean that some of the movies produced in these countries were quite low budget -- but, again, if you combine a higher quality movie with a real reason to buy (see in the theater/additional benefits for buying) there's no reason why big Hollywood movies can't take advantage of the same economics. Of course, some will also point out that when the unauthorized copies are downloaded, rather than available on VCD, the "cost" of the competition then goes to zero -- which is true -- but none of that precludes offering additional scarce value for buyers. In these countries it may just be air conditioning, but there are plenty of scarcities that can be sold in the US as well.

Finally, filmmakers in those countries all seem to recognize that obscurity is a bigger issue than "piracy," -- in part because they have to deal with government censors. So they realize that getting the films seen is the biggest issue, and they can monetize on the backend by offering other types of scarce value.

Now, obviously, the situation in all three countries is not ideal. And, no, I'm not saying that the answer to Hollywood's fears is to follow down these paths directly (though, I have no doubt that someone will accuse me of saying exactly that). But the larger point stands: even if there is rampant piracy (much worse than is found here), the movie industry does not die, and can thrive. And it does so by finding alternative streams of revenue, combined with focusing on the scarce value that can be provided, combined with embracing the promotional nature of the unauthorized films. And, of course, part of the strategy involves actually acknowledging that unauthorized copies are part of the competition, rather than just thinking of them as something illegal that must be stopped.

No, the industries in these three countries are certainly not what Hollywood should be modeling itself on, but they do clearly show that the dire warnings from Hollywood are totally off-base.

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Nigeria Demands Apology From Sony For Mentioning Nigerian Fraud In A Commercial?

Mike Masnick — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:18:00 PDT

I have to admit that this story seems so bizarre that I'm not quite sure I believe it. A bunch of folks have been submitting the news that the Nigerian government is apparently so upset by a Sony Playstation commercial that it's demanding an apology from Sony for allegedly "portraying Nigeria as a home of fraud where its citizens hardly do genuine business." Must be quite a commercial right? The only problem is that the commercial does no such thing: It just mentions, in passing, as a part of the joke of the commercial that "You can't believe everything you read on the Internet. Otherwise I'd be a Nigerian millionaire by now." I don't quite see how that implies that Nigerian citizens hardly do genuine business. It just suggests that there are Nigerian scammers out there -- which is hardly something the government can credibly deny. Hell, there are popular songs in Nigeria all about fleecing dumb Americans in online scams. Honestly, the whole complaint from the Nigerian gov't seems so odd, that it feels like part of Sony's marketing campaign...

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A Hunger Strike Isn't A New Business Model And It Won't Stop File Sharing

Mike Masnick — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:12:00 PDT

Talk about the wrong way to go about things. Apparently musicians who are upset about the rates of unauthorized file sharing in Nigeria chose to go on a hunger strike to protest such things. It's really difficult to think of a worse, less productive idea. Hunger strikes are used to "call attention" to a problem -- but usually the idea is to call attention to a problem not enough people care about. The thing is, most people understand what's going on with file sharing, and they think (accurately, in my opinion) that the real issue is that musicians need to embrace newer, better business models. The fact that they've failed to embrace new business models isn't exactly a "cause" that will get people excited because someone is refusing to eat. The file sharing will continue. Perhaps instead of starving themselves, these musicians could have put a bit more effort into a better business model.

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DEAR CITIBANK: I WOULD LIKE REQUEST TO YOU HELP IN SECURING 27 MILLION DOLLARS US

Mike Masnick — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 03:06:11 PST

As the US government looks to take over a bigger chunk of Citibank, you might wonder what the bank has been doing with its money lately. Apparently, part of it was going to a slightly more ambitious than usual Nigerian 419 scam. The scammer and some colleagues tricked Citibank into believing they represented the National Bank of Ethiopia, that country's central bank -- and convinced Citibank to then transfer $27 million to accounts they controlled. It doesn't sound like the scam actually worked in the end -- as questions arose, and the receiving banks transferred the money back eventually. Also, the supposed mastermind behind the scam has now been arrested. But, apparently, 419 scammers have figured out that, given how well various banks have managed their money over the last few years, they're just as good as targets, compared to clueless spam recipients.

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Lawyer Sues Citibank For Not Stopping Him From Losing Money In Nigerian Scam

Mike Masnick — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:21:28 PST

A lawyer in Houston is suing Citibank after he got scammed in a variation on the classic Nigerian email scam. There are a few interesting tidbits here that are worth discussing. First, the details: the lawyer, who does collections work, was contacted via email by a company that claimed to be a Japanese company that was trying to collect money from four clients in the US -- offering a contingency fee to the lawyer for help in getting the customers to pay up. Soon after that, the "Japanese company" claimed that one client had agreed to pay some of what it owed -- and it sent the law firm a check for $367,500. Citibank said the check cleared, and the law firm wired $182,500 to the company. Of course, it later turned out that the check was fraudulent, and the law firm was out the $182,500.

This is a variation on a popular version of the Nigerian email scam. The way it usually works is that the scammer buys something that's for sale... and then sends a check that's for significantly more than the purchase price using some sort of excuse. Once the check "clears," the seller is asked to wire back the excess money. This version is interesting in that it's slightly more sophisticated -- carefully going after law firms that do collections. Rather than being a totally "out of the blue" situation, they worked hard to make it seem like business as usual until the scam is done. Sneaky.

While it's easy to mock the lawyer for getting tricked, the basic version of the scam and this more sophisticated version both rely on a very unclear part concerning check processing. Most people assume that once a check "clears" it's confirmed as valid. That's not true. Banks clear the check before it's actually validated, and the scammers exploit both the time between these two events and the fact that most people assume (or are told) that once a check clears, the money is definitely theirs. There are a few ways to solve this that banks could take. They could not clear the check until it's absolutely declared valid. Or, they could make it much clearer that, while the money is available, the check has not been validated and the money could be pulled. Since most banks do neither, the guy's lawsuit against Citibank is at least somewhat understandable -- though, it's unlikely a court will agree with him.

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Are 419 Victims Guilty Of Fraud If They Recruit Others?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:14:01 PST

One of our readers, Stack, sent in a link to this story about an Australian couple arrested for their participation in recruiting others into a Nigerian 419 scam. Stack suggested in his submission that it was a case of a 419 victim who, having "learned" the scam then turned around and started scamming others. But, from the description I'm not so sure that's the case. Instead, it sounds like the couple was really convinced that the scam was real, and merely convinced others to join in the scam, as well, in order to collect the "necessary" money to free the (non-existent) millions in Nigeria (or whereever this particular scammer claimed the money was).

This raises some interesting questions. If my read is correct, then the couple in question certainly didn't profit from the scam at all, and didn't even know they were being scammed. As we've seen in the past, victims of 419 scams are often so convinced by the scam that even when the whole thing is explained to them, they still believe the scammers are willing to give them money -- something that's been found to be true in historical scams like the infamous Drake's Fortune.

However, if that's the case, the couple in question didn't know it was a scam, and wasn't directly profiting from getting others involved (though, they ignorantly thought they were). So... are they victims or are they scammers? Or both?

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Latest Nigerian Email Scam: Renters Checks

Mike Masnick — Fri, 3 Oct 2008 14:44:30 PDT

It's been quite fascinating, over the years, to see how the various "Nigerian" scammers have adapted and evolved their strategies. While variations on the originals exist, over time we keep seeing new scams show up. They started, obviously, with the traditional 419 "advance fee" scam, asking you to help them get more money out of Nigeria. Then, they morphed by paying attention to current events and making the scams more closely related to events happening in the news. Then there was the scam where they would buy something on eBay, but send a forged check that was much, much higher than the purchase price, asking you to send back the difference. Of course, the victim would only find out later that the check was a fake and that he had been cheated out of all the money sent (as well as the value of the sold item). Then, they started combining phishing and advance fee scams, to make you think your friends needed money wired urgently to Nigeria. Oh, and who can forget when they started a scam that didn't prey on the victims' greed, but their love of cute puppies? Awwwwww...

The latest is that they're placing ads for apartments to rent in high rent districts, and then asking prospective tenants to do a money transfer to a friend or relative to prove you have the money available. That seems legit -- and since it's to a friend or a relative, the prospective tenant knows that the money is safe. Except, once they've forwarded on a scanned copy of the transfer payment receipt, the scammers go to the bank pretending to be the recipient and withdraw the money. It's a bit more complicated, but again, it's a scam where the victim is easily tricked because there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with what's happening.

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Nigerian Official Blames The Victims Of Nigerian 419 Advance Fee Scams

Mike Masnick — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:10:58 PDT

It still amazes us that people still fall for so-called Nigerian advance-fee 419 scam emails. I'd actually noticed that I'd stopped getting such emails offering me millions for helping smuggle gold out of the country, but in the last week there's been a new bunch of them -- and apparently people still fall for them. According to a Nigerian diplomat in Australia, he's just as amazed, and thus thinks the victims are equally to blame and deserve jailtime. He claims that the government "frowns" on these scams, and spends plenty of time trying to track down the scammers -- but we've been reporting on Nigerian gov't claims for years and years and they never seem to get very far in stopping the scammers. But, still, he claims that the victims are equally at fault.

While it's true that most of these scams prey on people's greed (they're basically roping people into "stealing" money), it's a bit extreme to claim they should be thrown in jail for being conned. If you read a book like Drake's Fortune, which describes a similar scam nearly a century ago that was incredibly effective, you realize how easily people are fooled into these things. And we've even seen cases where victims still believe the scammers after they've lost everything and the whole scam has been explained to them. That's how thoroughly convincing these scams can be.

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Nigerian 419 Advance Fee Scammers Move To... LinkedIn?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:38:15 PDT

It still seems difficult to believe that anyone falls for those "Nigerian" advance fee 419 scams, but time and time again we read about smart people who should know better who fall for them. And reports come in about just how much money these scams make. And, the really amazing thing, is that many of the victims are so convinced by the scam that even after it's all revealed, and they've lost all their money, they still believe the scammer's story. However, times are getting harder to convince people about these scams over unsolicited email, so apparently they're starting to move onto social networks, including business social networks like LinkedIn. Perhaps I just use LinkedIn in a very different manner than most people, but I find it hard to believe that if some random unknown person suddenly "connected" to you on LinkedIn and offered you a cut of a multi-million dollar stash, you wouldn't be suspicious.

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