Spiky: Ghanaian producer celebrates US$250k win in copyright case against CAF

Ghanaian producer Spiky, known privately as Kwabena Ofei-Kwadey Nkrumah, has great news to celebrate.

Today, Wednesday, 17 July 2024, the Commercial Court 7, Accra, ruled in his favour in his copyright case against the Confederation of African Football (CAF).

The court pronounced CAF guilty of using music from an instrumental piece titled Okomfo Anokye without prior permission from the creator, Spiky.

CAF used the Okomfo Anokye music for promotional materials for their 2018 CAF Awards, which happened on 8 January 2019.

According to Spiky, when he uploaded Okomfo Anokye to his SoundCloud and YouTube channels, he indicated any intended use of his music and/or beats for commercial purposes required his prior consent.

However, CAF said the piece was “available online for free download without any restrictions or conditions, to use for the artwork posted on CAF’s social media platforms”.

Before Spiky took CAF to court citing copyright infringement, he decried their actions on Twitter (now X). This was in 2019. He said while CAF admitted to the offence and apologised, they were silent concerning his demand for compensation.

CAF mounted a defence in a statement filed by Naa Odofoley Nortey, arguing apart from an apology and the pulling down of the soundtrack from its social media platforms within 24 hours of the creator's complaint, Spiky was not entitled to the reliefs he sought in his writ of summons and statement of claim.

It emphasised, also, it did not use the soundtrack for commercial purposes as the CAF Awards was a non-profit event and, being a non-governmental, non-profit organisation, recorded no commercial gain "in the less than one-day use of the soundtrack in particular and the CAF Awards in general".

For Spiky, Justice Emmanuel Loddoh, presiding over the case, awarded a cedi equivalent of US$250,000 in damages, apart from a legal cost of GHS40,000 against CAF.

Upon his resounding victory, Spiky took to Facebook to note his valiant and inspiring fight and its fruit was not just for him but for the entire creative arts industry and its diverse stakeholders.