Hotels sued by ARSOG want out of court settlement

Board Secretary of the Audiovisual Rights Society of Ghana (ARSOG), Abeiku Sagoe said the hotels it sued for non-payment of royalties are pleading for out of court settlement.
Abeiku Sagoe told KMJ on Daybreak Hitz that “We have sent almost all of them to court and now they have started reacting – many of them have called that they have received their summons and they want the case out of court…so I have directed them to our lawyer, Mr. John Lakai.”
Royalties to members
He also indicated that performers will receive their royalties directly from ARSOG, unlike previous instances where producers took the money from ARSOG on behalf of the performers.
Sagoe said they had reports that performers were not getting their royalties, so they decided that from 2016, performers will receive their monies directly from ARSOG,” he said.
“I for instance never received money from anybody in the past,” he said.
However, Movie Producer Ola Michael, who is a member of the society, refuted the claim by Abeiku Sagoe that producers receive royalties from ARSOG on behalf of the artistes.
“He mentioned that for years producers have been given performers’ money and that we are supposed to give it to them. I’m sorry that I don’t understand because nobody has ever given me money as a producer to give to performers,” he said.
According to him, for five years they received their blank levy as producers and authors without any controversies, so “if anybody comes today and tells me that I have been given performers money that I’m supposed to give to them, I’m sorry, I have not and no ARSOG member has been given me any money, so wherever that money is they should go and find it.”
Meanwhile, a pundit on the Show, Mel Kwasi Davis hinted of plans to sue ARSOG, following the organization’s decision to sue hotels for royalties.
“When I saw the headline my first reaction was to first sue ARSOG. You yourself we want to sue you, who are you going to sue? Which hotel? We want to sue them,” Davis said.
He said the reason they want to sue ARSOG is that almost six years they don’t have an interim board, secondly, they have an expired license, in fact the Attorney General must descend on them,” he added.