Kumasi, July 31, GNA - 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.
