Join in the fight against piracy, publishing stakeholders urged

Ms Harriet Tagoe, Managing Director and Publisher, Afram Publications, has called on stakeholders in the publishing industry and authors to join hands in the fight against piracy.

She said the rate with which people are infringing on works by authors was very high and this made it difficult for many publishers to sell and get royalties for the writers.

Ms Tagoe was speaking at an annual author’s forum held in Accra to raise awareness on the basic rights pertaining to Intellectual Property and copyright laws.

Ms Tagoe said issues related to copyright and economic rights are of a major concern hence the need to protect works of creative writers.

Ms Sheila Djangmah, Documentation and Research Officer, Copyright Office, said the copyright office shall embark on an educational exercise in second cycle schools to ensure that students become conversant with laws pertaining to infringement.

She said some police and customs personnel have also been trained to appreciate the copyright concept and help detect pirated works at the borders.

“All these together with the formation of a piracy committee for monitoring are to ensure people’s work are well protected and taken through the right procedures as far as copyright law is concerned,” she said.

Ms Djangmah said the Marrakesh Treaty, a treaty recently signed in Morocco, would facilitate the work of visually impaired persons and ensure that write-ups are turned into brails for easy accessibility.

She said it is a grave offence for anyone to reproduce, duplicate, extract and imitate a copyrighted item except for the person’s private use.

She said it is important for writers to enter into proper agreement with their publishers, editors and illustrators to know the revenue, sharing of proceeds to avoid future problems.