REPPAG expresses concern over abuse of Copyright Law

The Record Producers and Music Publishers Association of Ghana (REPPAG), has appealed to the National Communication Authority (NCA) to compel mobile phone operators to pay royalties for using local music as ring tones to subscribers.

They said the Authority should ensure that it became a requirement on its registration form for mobile phone operators to pay the royalties to the Copyright Society of Ghana (COSGA). A statement signed by Mr Richard Oppong-Mensah, General Secretary of REPPAG in Kumasi on Thursday, also called on the National Frequency Control Board (NFCB) to introduced similar regulation to the radio and television stations.

It said it was interesting to note that, whilst section 6(a) of the Copyright Act (Act 690) states that “it is the author’s moral right to demand that his name or pseudonym be mentioned when any of his works are used, most television and radio presenters have disregarded this law with impunity.

“They can play three-hour musical programmes without giving recognition to the composers of such music, let alone the producers of the work, nor the titles of the songs being played,” the statement said.

It reminded radio and television stations that before they played a single piece of music on their programmes, they must log and acknowledge the work of that author or composer and let the public know the title of that particular music as required by law.

The statement also stressed the importance of these stations to mention the publishing label and the owner’s name, stressing that in planning their programmes, Radio and TV stations should include the songs they wish to play and the duration of each song on that particular programme and not to play songs in full in order to avoid home-taping.

It expressed the hope that these measures if adhered to, would help bring sanity in the industry and go a long way to help the musician whose works these stations played.