Copyright law to set up tribunal for stiffer punishment

Accra, Oct. 14, GNA - The current Copyright Bill before Parliament would provide for the creation of a Copyright Tribunal that would met out stiffer punishment to persons, who violates the rights of authors and composers in the country.

Professor George Hagan, Chairman of the National Commission on Culture said the Bill met the minimum requirement of the World Intellectuals Property Organisations (WIPO) Internet Treaties.

Prof. Hagan, who said this in a speech read for him by Professor Emeritus Kwabena Nketia, a Musicologist at a four-day African Committee Meeting for Heads of African Authors Societies and Copy Rights Offices on Tuesday, noted that piracy was undoubtedly an impediment to the orderly development of cultural industries that needed collaborative efforts to fight it.

He said it was important that African Copyright experts adopted strategies that would effectively check piracy on the continent.

"The practice of piracy stunt growth for the local industries producing music, films, books and other works of creativity...The result is that the value of our people are distorted simply because that African story is not told from the African perspective.

"African culture face the real risk of being adulterated under the guise of foreign influences, whilst the advanced world are progressively adopting measures to protect and promote their cultural heritage," Prof. Hagan said.

The NCC Chairman, therefore, threw a challenge to the participants attending the meeting to resolve and demonstrate their collective determination to wage war against piracy to save African culture for posterity.

The African continent, he said was still grappling with the challenge of how to access the enormous copyright returns from the use of African works of creativity and urged the participants to come out with concrete decisions that would move forward copyright administration in Africa.

Prof. Hagan said Ghana, through the active collaboration of the WIPO, International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisation (IFRRO) and the Reproduction Rights Organisation of Norway had succeeded in establishing a Reprographic Rights Organisation.

Mr Simon Ouedraogo, Representative of the WIPO, said collaboration and collective management was crucial in achieving efficient and effective protection system and a sound copyright administration in Africa.

He said with the current challenges, which confronted Copyright Administrators on the continent especially in this era of information technology, there was the need for continued and sustained efforts on the part of the various copyright societies.

Mr Robert Hooijer, Managing Director of the Southern African Music Rights Organization Limited, said Africa had come far and that the time for talking and making speeches at workshops and seminars should be over.

"The time for actions in now, we have suffered to much, we need to consider carefully what will strengthen our respective organizations and institutions and also the needs of our authors and actors and composers," he said.

The meeting being attended by about 30 participants is under the auspices of the Copyright Society of Ghana in collaboration with the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and WIPO.