Copyright owners should seek redress in the courts - AG

Accra, July 30, GNA - Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, on Thursday urged intellectual property owners to make use of the law courts, to seek redress when their works are plagiarised instead of relying on the Copyright Office to remedy the situation.

She made the call at a symposium organised by the Editors Forum of Ghana (EFG) to discuss the "Rights and responsibilities of the media under the Copyright Law".

It was intended to throw the spotlight on plagiarism and other copyright violations particularly in the media. Mrs Mould-Iddrisu noted that plagiarism was just like breaking into someone's premises and stealing valuables, saying that offenders must be dealt with by the law and not through soft administrative interventions. "I wish there were more law suits against persons who violate people's copyright and I would urge copyright owners to use the law courts to seek redress instead of the office of the Copyright Administrator," she said.

She noted that the courts had a responsibility to interpret the Copyright Law to adequately protect creators of intellectual property. But Judges, she said, would need the copyright owners to give them the opportunity to work with the Law and expand it for their benefit. The Minister said it was, therefore, the duty of copyright owners to use the courts more often.

Mrs Mould-Iddrisu noted that in developing countries, like Ghana, copyright owners tended to depend on the State, represented by the Copyright Administrator, to protect their rights, saying that there was the need to move away from that to stem the rampant copyright violations.

She said whereas it was sometimes difficult for the Copyright Office to determine who the rightful owner of a protected work was, the courts were in the position to determine that through the interpretation of the Law.

"People must take responsibility for themselves and use the law to bring these intellectual thieves to justice," she said. She also urged Lawyers to advise copyright owners on how they could use the law to protect themselves.

Mrs Mould- Iddrisu said the Government was committed to ensure that owners of intellectual property, including copyright, industrial property and others, were sufficiently protected under the Law and enjoyed the fruits of their labour.

"The Ministry is currently examining the legal and regulatory framework, relating to copyright with the view to strengthening them for the benefit of owners as well as users," she said. She said plans were also afoot to merge the industrial property section of the Registrar-General's Department and the Copyright Office to constitute a one-stop-shop Intellectual Property Office. Mr Bright Blewu, General Secretary of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), said plagiarism had become a huge problem in the media, particularly with the advent of the Internet. He said the GJA Awards Committee recently complained about plagiarism in some of the entries for awards.

Mr Yaw Boadu Ayeboafo, General Manager Newspapers, Graphic Communications Group Limited, singled out the Ghana News Agency (GNA) as the most abused source of news by other media houses, both local and foreign.

He said these outlets use GNA works without due attribution. "Some newspapers use GNA stories in their entire editions. Some radio stations also use GNA stories for their entire bulletins and yet they do not give a single attribution to GNA," he said, adding that whenever there was a problem with any story, these media houses asked the aggrieved persons to go the GNA since it was the source of the news. He also noted that newspaper reviews on radio and television stations constituted plagiarism to the extent that sometime the entire story in a newspaper was read on air ahead of discussion. Mr Bernard Bosumprah, Copyright Administrator, agreed that newspaper reviews on radio and TV constituted public performance of other peoples' creative works, for which attribution was required and fees must be paid.

He explained that in the case of the GNA, its news were covered under the copyright law and therefore any organisation that sourced them was expected to give due attribution to GNA. Mr Bosumprah said it was unfortunate that journalists, who were supposed to know better, were themselves facing such problems, saying the advent of the internet had not changed anything as the copyright laws were still the same. He rather blamed the chaos on operators of websites. Mr Bosumprah urged the media to be mindful of the copyright law and learn more about it so that they could responsibly apply it in their professional work. 30 July, 09