COSGA sues Carlos Sakyi, three others

Accra, May 14, GNA - The Copyright Society of Ghana (COSGA) has filed a suit at an Accra Fast Track High Court against Carlos Sakyi, a musician and three organisations including Metro TV for damages and an order from printing, publishing or circulating a study they conducted on the Ghanaian music industry because it is defamatory.

COSGA is claiming that Metro TV and Optimum Media with funding from BUSAC Funds had published a document titled "Metro TV/BUSAC Project comparative study on the music industry of Ghana and South Africa".

The suit claimed that on page 10 of that document, the defendants purporting to assign reason for the decline of the music industry in Ghana "falsely and maliciously" wrote, printed and published that the "lack of accountability and transparency in the operations of the Copyright Society of Ghana, especially its flawed royalty distribution system had deprived copyright owners of musical works of billions of cedis".

COSGA said by those words the defendants meant and were understood to mean that it was administering the rights of members fraudulently and further meant that billions of cedis meant for COSGA members had been diverted.

The other defendants are BUSAC Funds, a non-governmental funding agency and Optimum Media Prime, a media company.

In its statement of claim, COSGA said Sakyi and Metro TV had for sometime now pursued an agenda of undermining its operations and that Metro TV had on several occasions opened its station to Sakyi to make wild and unfounded allegations against it with a view to creating disaffection among its rights owners.