GAMORPS appeals to Attorney General

The Ghana Music Owners Rights Protection Society has appealed to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to review and delete the burdensome and detrimental clauses under the copyrights regulations before they are taken to Parliament.

The group called on the A-G to institute a probe into the operations of the Copyright office, particularly in relation to its handling of procurement and sales of the so-called “security devices” known as stickers, to stakeholders of music and audiovisual industries, and to account for the huge sums of money generated from such sales.

Readers will recall that on 23 August, 2008, The Saturday Statesman published that some musicians were planning a demonstration against the copyrights regulations which they noted, were finally going to destroy the music industry, if nothing was done about them.

As a result, GAMORPS - a society which is yet to be licensed and collect royalties on behalf of musicians - last Tuesday held a press conference in Accra to vent their grievances about some of the regulations which would not favour them.

Present at the conference were Nana Kwame Ampadu, Mark Okraku Mantey, Carlos Sakyi, Kojo Antwi, Amakye Dede, Gyedu Blay Ambolley, Randy Nunno, Obuoba J.A. Adofo and others.

Carlos Sakyi, who read the statement on behalf of the group, disclosed that allegations leveled against the Copyrights office included printing of large quantities of the stickers in a printing press without any form of security, as “it paves an easy way for piracy to flourish and puts at risk the viability of the music and audio-visual industries”.

According to him, Section 25 of the Copyright Act 690 states that anyone who sells without a sticker will be fined GHC6000, and one’s own work seized. “These stickers they are imposing on us can easily be counterfeited as the police are not able to distinguish between the genuine ones the pirate works”.

Some of the provisions include the requirement of the Society to submit reports of meetings, operations and accounts to the sector Minister annually, authority of Minister to disapprove or revoke license, among other things, which they see as “superfluous and unnecessary”.

He stated, “A person who contravenes a provision of these regulations commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not less thanGH¢3000 and not more than GH¢6000 or to a term of imprisonment of not more than two years or both”.

He further revealed that there was an attempt by COSGA officials to use security agencies some security agencies to intimidate and create panic among musicians and copyright owners for demanding payment of their royalties.

Carlos Sekyi indicated that there had been death threats and blackmail through text messages and anonymous phone calls to some of their members, which he disclosed, had   been reported to the IGP.

“We are therefore calling on the A-G to use his good office to assist in the exposure and prosecution of those behind these cowardly acts”, he expressed.