ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the existent regimes of copyright, contract enforcement, and other government initiatives that have proven to be quite weak, with the exception of censorship functions. It discusses the industry's self-made alternative structuring institutions that circumvent governmental oversight or intervention, marked by the strength of the industry's informal guilds and the strength of personal and ethnic ties in the industry. The chapter deals with reflections on the relevance of Nigeria's cultural policy environment to studies of other cultural production globally. The global fame the Nigerian movie industry has garnered in the two past decades makes the industry one of the more visible examples of a cultural industry functioning in a light policy environment, but far from unique. Studying the Nigerian movie industry in the context of cultural policy allows us to consider the potentials for the development of sustainable cultural industries in an environment absent of significant government intervention.
