Nkonkonsa Celebrity Gossip From Africa
The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) is being approached by Ghanaian musician Fuse ODG’s legal team regarding the use of his video without permission.
The Ghana Tourism Authority has been in the spotlight for violating copyright by using Kirani Ayat’s song without his permission.
Fuse ODG and his team have revealed in a statement that despite having in the past given some of his work to the government for its use.
He cited his song “Bra Fie” with Damian Marley, which served as the Year of Return’s theme song. Fuse ODG felt Ayat’s pain when he expressed concern about the government using his song without his permission.
Read the full statement by the record label of Fuse ODG, New African:
As a Company, we feel that the last few days have exposed an issue in Ghana that goes beyond the Office of the President, Ghana: The lack of respect and understanding of intellectual property.
We have sanctioned works in the past for Government use, most notably, our 2018 record, “Bra Fie” featuring Damian Marley, which was used as the theme song for the ‘Year of Return; which we launched via our TINA Festival alongside the President of Ghana.
However, no such process was observed in relation to the recent video in question regarding our record “New African Girl”.
We sympathize with Kirani Ayat. As creative persons, we sacrifice a lot to be able to put together a song, let alone a whole video with high-quality production value.
As a Company, we have stayed true to our own mission – investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote Ghana over the years, which we will continue to do.
Clearly, mistakes have been made by the Government in this situation, but hopefully, they can take corrective action to compensate accordingly.
Going forward, the solution must be to invest in more education around intellectual property.
This is something the Ministry of Tourism, Arts & Culture can do both internally and for the creative sector as a whole. Ghana has always been an influential voice in music globally, and a lot more can be done to support artists from an early stage.
In the meantime, our legal team is in discussion with the Ministry and their legal team in order to resolve this issue.
NKONKONSA.com
