GHAMRO OFFICIALS TALK MORE ABOUT MUSIC RIGHTS

                 GHAMRO OFFICIALS TALK MORE ABOUT MUSIC RIGHTS

Mr. Abraham, Ghana Music Right official from Accra joined on Skery spark talk with Mr. Awusi an official from Cape Coast to talk more about why people have to pay for using music for commercial purposes.

Recently and over the years, some individuals who have been consulted to pay this have always disagreed because they don’t see the need to or they believe a group of people are just want to take money for their personal use. But it something someone has created based on his talent.

“Let me start it this way, if someone works and buys a car, you will see that the family becomes happy, then he/she builds a house, he has a property now. If you will have to use that property, you have to consult him/her first. You can’t just go and sleep there. So we all agree that anything that someone uses money to establish, we have to consult the owner before we can use his property. This one is called physical property but there are some group of people whose gift given by God is to write songs, act movies, design buildings etc and that one is intellectual property. So the government has seen this and is saying they also have to gain from their talent.” He said

He explained that people use money to create songs to make people happy and thus we use it at restaurants, hotels, bars and so on to entertain costumers and as well gain from it. The law says that once you recognize this creativity, we have to take permission in order to use the property. “The whole trust of GHAMRO is that, if someone uses music in the work place and gains from it, he/she has to pay something. We can’t go to each musician to pay to them that is why GHAMRO stands in place to take it on their behalf.” He said.

The payment of these licenses and rights include, bar operators, spinners, taxi drivers and people who do live shows. So far as these people gain from using music they are included but individuals who just use it for pleasure without gaining are out.

Mr. Abraham made it clear that they have now created satellite offices now to make the collection of royalties easy because earlier, people had to go to Accra to collect and pay them but offices have been provided in most regions including Cape Coast where Mr. Awusi takes care of.

Mr. Awusi also on Skery Spark Talk, said that there sometimes difficulties because of the disunity among spinners. They go on operation to collect the royalties whiles they don’t have permission. He said that GHAMRO has now partnered with the police to arrest any spinner who goes on operation without permission from GHAMRO.