Abraham Adjetey, Chief Operations Officer, GHAMRO
The management of the Ghana Music Right Organisation (GHAMRO) will soon organise a campaign against individuals and companies selling musical works on various music purchasing websites without their owners’ consent.
The society has expressed its readiness to wage intensive war against music pirates who have deprived musicians from their revenue.
The purpose of the anti-piracy exercise, BEATWAVES gathered, is to arrest several persons who engage in illegal downloading and sale of music and audiovisual works which violate Ghana’s copyright laws and international treaties.
The activities of music pirates in the country, according to the society, had brought untold hardships upon the local musicians and the producers who lost heavy investments through such illegal trade.
The anti-piracy exercise is part of the series of measures adopted by the society led by Rex Omar to ensure the enforcement of the Copyright Act and music piracy.
GHAMRO pointed out that if the activities of pirates not checked, it could kill creativity in the music industry.
“It is unfortunate we didn’t pay so much attention to the online market stores until recently. To our surprise and amazement, we realized most of the musical works were being sold on Amazon, iTunes and many other platforms by unknown individuals,” Enock Agyapong, a copyright advocate, told BEATWAVES.
The society which has the powers backed by law to ban music users from using the works of its members declared its readiness to take legal action against music users who have refused to pay royalties to the society.
The Chairman of GHAMRO, Rex Omar, recently told BEATWAVES that they were bent on improving on ways of collecting and distributing royalties for music right owners.
“Going forward, our new management department will roll out a complete image branding of the society and its collection system in each region of Ghana. This will be accompanied by weekly task force activities,” he said.
He mentioned that in as much as GHAMRO was yet to achieve its full objectives, it has taken the turn for the better and has improved in terms of the overall corporate governance, transparency and accountability.
GHAMRO is a royalty collection organisation that represents the rights of music copyright holders.
It was established under Section 49 of the Copyright Law, Act 690 of 2005 and regulated under Copyright Regulation, L.I. 1962 of 2010 to collect and distribute royalties accruing to authors and owners of copyright and neighbouring rights.
It collects royalties for all music rights owners in Ghana.
By George Clifford Owusu