Go to court, musicians told

A music researcher and consultant, Mr. Carlos Sekyi, narrated to participants attending a seminar on `Distribution- The Key to Success In The Music Industry,` how the music of a young musician he met years ago was used without any payment to him.

`Few years ago I met a young man who has produced music and it has been used by a particularly company for advert on radio for three years without any payment to him. When he approached the company, he was told the DJ has been paid for playing the advert` he averred.

According to him, musicians in the country should be courageous enough to institute legal action against unscrupulous institutions and individuals who are taking undue advantage of their work to benefit themselves.

`If you create something, you own it and it is your property. So you must depend on it and be paid before anybody can use it,`he charged them.

Mr. Sekyi said although music contributes significantly to national and human development in this country, musicians in Ghana have not been duly recognised in terms of what they should benefit after going through tough times to produce good music.

Touching on distribution in the music business, he said it plays a critical role, as it begins the road to recovery sometimes of huge sums of money invested in the business.

A well executed coherent and cohesive distribution system, Mr. Sekyi said, assists immensely in ensuring a return on investment for music business practitioners and investors.

`It is consequently imperative to ensure professional distribution systems and structures are put in place for business practitioners, be it the recording artists, executive producers/record labels or fascinated investors,` he said.

Mr. Sekyi stated that in Ghana there is a particular and unique type of distribution system that evolved from independent record labels using their small outlets specifically created and designed for their own contracted recording artists, to carry cassettes and CDs of other executive producers and artists who lack facilities for displaying and selling their works.

He said although most outlets are advertised as distributors on the recordings, they are primarily points of sale and do not perform functions or provide services associated with professional music distribution.

The resultant effect, Mr. Sekyi said, is several financial disasters in the music business, as without an organised distribution, the majority of projects in the high risk business of music production are doomed to failure. He added that most projects sink into obscurity for lack of cash to sustain the business.