Musicians lose millions of Cedis due to piracy

The stakeholders in the Ghanaian music industry have been claiming that for over a decade music piracy has not only robbed Ghanaian musicians of their expected revenue, but significantly tampered with the quality of their products, thereby causing public disaffection against them.

In addition to piracy, many of the private radio stations, such as mobile phone operators selling ring tones, nightclubs and other music users have not been paying their dues for their use of music in Ghana.

Piracy is defined as the unauthorized duplication of an original recording for commercial gain without the consent of the rights owner. Pirated products are copied and packaged to resemble the original as closely as possible.

The original producer’s trademarks and logos are reproduced in order to mislead the consumer into believing that they are buying an original product.

BEATWAVES gathered that piracy harms not only the owners of intellectual property but also consumers who spend hard earned money to buy substandard musical works.

Reports available to BEATWAVES also indicated that because the pirates do not incur much cost as the producers, they tend to sell their products cheaper in the open market which affects the sale of the original works.

A number of Ghanaian musicians who are victims of piracy in separate interviews with BEATWAVES called for a massive educational promotion on television to educate the public to shun pirated materials in order to grow the creative arts industry in Ghana.

According to them due to the increasing rate of piracy in the music industry most of them depended on live musical performances as their source of revenue to enable them to make ends meet.

Some of them criticized government for not taking concrete actions in fighting the piracy, whilst others stressed that the government was not serious enough and mostly talked about intellectual property rights in seminars.

They also condemned the current President of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), Bice Osei Kuffour, aka Obour for not putting in place policies to curb the rate of piracy in the country.

Many people including those in the industry are not yet aware of the intellectual property rights and sanction for pirating one’s copyright, according to one of the musicians.

Investigations by BEATWAVES revealed that piracy costs Ghanaian music industry significant losses in jobs and earnings, and government, substantial lost tax revenue.

Piracy of recorded music costs Ghana, sound and video recording industries billions of Cedis in lost revenue and profits. These losses, however, represent only a fraction of the impact of recorded music piracy on the Ghanaian economy as a whole.

Piracy in the Ghanaian music industry cost the country GHS 2.02million in early 2006 and in 2007 it rose to GHS 3.4 million.

In the USA, a report released by the Institute of Policy Innovation on August 21, 2007, indicated that rampant global piracy of recorded music cost the U.S. $12.5 billion in economic output and 71,060 jobs annually, but the figure has increased significantly.

However, many individuals who pirated music may not think it is a big deal and may not think about the affects it can have on musicians and production companies. The act of music piracy is still a crime in Ghana and other parts of the world and it costs music companies millions of Cedis a year to produce musical albums.

This is a problem because it can lead to those working in the music industry to lose money, and for some they can lose their jobs due to low revenue. Music piracy is a problem that can and should be put to an end. There are many questions being raised in the debate of what is right and what is wrong regarding music piracy.

Many cases relating to violations of the copyright-infringement laws appear in court. The fight concerning what is ethical and what seems right will continue, as people may feel they can share music freely because it is a form of expression.