New Copyright Law to Be Passed

The Attorney General and the Minister of Justice, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says government would soon pass a new copyright law that would prescribe stiffer penalties for pirates and be more responsive to the needs of artists.

He said piracy in the country is still high because the present level of sanctions against the offence is grossly inadequate and is no deterrent to unscrupulous elements that prey on the creativity, hard work and investment of artists in the music industry.

Nana Akufo-Addo, who was speaking in Accra at the launch of the Gamugram System developed by the National Anti-Piracy Committee on Music, said one solution to the menace of piracy was the introduction of an authenticating system to identify genuine works from pirated ones.

The Gamugram System is an improvement on the Banderole and the Hologram systems, which were introduced to check piracy but collapsed due to their inability to meet the exigencies of the time.

It costs 300 cedis for one, is computerised and has more in-built security devices to reduce the activities of pirates and ensure that only legitimate composers and producers remained in the industry.

The new system also enables composers world-wide to obtain relevant information on their works and makes producers more accountable to composers by determining how much royalties are due to composers in terms of the quantity of works sold by the producers.

Nana Akufo-Addo announced that the administrative arrangement had been entrenched in the new Copyright Bill.

He said the issue of mechanical royalties had been a source of worry to composers and gave the assurance that the Gamugram System would constitute a meaningful base upon which the mechanical royalty of composers shall be determined.

He urged the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), Ghana Association of Phonograph Industry; Copyright Society of Ghana (COSGA) to collaborate with the Copyright Office to work out modalities that would ensure that mechanical royalties were paid for appropriately to composers.