He made this statement while addressing the Directors General of Copyright Offices in the West Africa sub-region at the opening of the three-day workshop on Wednesday, September 18, 2024,  at Coconut Grove Regency Hotel in Accra.

He said people in the cultural and creative industries are at a crossroads of creativity and innovation where copyright plays a vital role in the dispensation of creativity.

“…we must acknowledge the challenges we face. The rapid advancement of technology has complicated the landscape of copyright. From piracy to unauthorized use of creative works, these issues demand our immediate attention and action,” he said.

Agyapa indicated that, copyright is not just a legal framework; it is by extension, the foundation upon which our arts and culture thrives.

He further noted that copyright enables inventors/creators, artists, and cultural practitioners to gain recognition get rewarded for their invaluable contributions to society.

He therefore charged the participants of the workshop to make decisions that would help protect the intellectual property rights of creatives.

“As Director Generals, you play a pivotal role in the implementation of copyright laws. Your position is central in fostering an environment where creativity flourishes, while also respecting the rights of those who create the products. It behooves you to be champions of private copyright, ensuring that our artists, creative practitioners, and creators receive a fair deal for their works,” he noted.

The Minister however acknowledged the contribution of EVOWAS in shaping the intellectual property landscape of the creatives in the sub-region.

“ECOWAS has made significant strides in strengthening the capacity in its member states, assessing the status of copyright office and protecting intellectual property and fostered collaboration with international organizations. Which has been very instrumental in addressing copyright challenges,” he mentioned.

The workshop was meant to advance the implementation of the directive on a harmonizing provision related to the right to remuneration for private copying with the UEMOA Member States.

The program also aims to build on the advancements made in the harmonization process within the UEMOA area, to achieve a broader harmonization across the Region.

Organised by the ECOWAS Commission, this workshop, most importantly aims to adopt a strategy for the harmonization of private copying in all ECOWAS member states.

Source: Kwame Dadzie

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Speaking to Graphic Showbiz, he stated that the laws are unable to protect the rights of creators, thus hampering the growth of the creative sector.

He attributed this to the failure of the Copyright Office of Ghana to go digital, which is discouraging the creation of new works and hindering the fight against piracy and other copyright infringements in the country’s creative industry.

Mr Aboagye expressed concerns over the Ghana Copyright Office still wallowing in the analogue mentality.

He explained that the existing copyright laws lacked provisions that would allow content creators to assert their rights in case of piracy and other challenges they face when unauthorised reproduction of their work occurs.

“Last year, I created content which went viral, and a Nigerian uploaded it on his YouTube channel. When I decided to upload it, YouTube flagged it. I was told I could not do it because it was not mine. How do we fight these issues? Our current copyright laws do not make provision for these online contents and your intellectual property just goes down the drain in just a second.”

“So, if someone pirates your content and you manage to take them on, and they get a good lawyer to defend them, you are finished, because there is no legal backing for you again,” he added.

Mr Aboagye also called for urgent action from the Copyright Office to issue digital certificates to movie producers and creatives.

These certificates, he argued, would empower creators to claim ownership of their content on prominent video streaming platforms and challenge unauthorised uploads effectively.

“The Copyright Office is not doing much. They don’t even have plans to develop digital certificates which we could stand on that to challenge certain institutions. This is because when someone uploads your content and you challenge it, they can grant your request if you have a digital certificate for the content you have produced,” he emphasised.

In addition to advocating for digital certificates, he called on the Copyright Office and its stakeholders to educate the public on copyright issues, with particular emphasis on royalties and acquisition processes to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure fair compensation for creators.

“There is much education to be done to sensitise stakeholders on these copyright issues, royalties and acquisition to avoid conflict of interest”, he added.

In response, a Senior Research and Documentation Officer at the Ghana Copyright Office, James Owusu Ansah, said attempts by the Copyright Office to change their operations to digital have been unsuccessful due to financial and logistic constraints.

He said despite a strong desire to adapt operations and build capacity, the Office has faced obstacles in making this transition.

“We went to the Public Accounts Committee earlier this year and one of the challenges we presented was the Office’s inability to keep pace with current trends due to financial and logistic limitations.

“We have had this digital agenda on the table for a long time. However, because we don’t have the muscle to pull it through, people think we are not doing anything about it. We have even engaged stakeholders on it before,” he said.

He also explained that efforts at reviewing the copyright laws were ongoing to cater to the contemporary needs of creatives. Although he would not give a specific timeframe, he assured that the office is actively working to make it a reality.

“Our copyright laws came into existence in the analogue era, and the Office has made plans to adjust that. We have engaged stakeholders and strategic partners. However, the revision of laws involves a complex and time-consuming process. So, we can’t tell when it will be reviewed, but our people in the creative arts space should be assured it will surely be reviewed to suit their needs,” he added.

Touching on the digital certificates, he shared with Graphic Showbiz that the Copyright Office is in the process of upgrading existing certificates with digital barcodes and other features to strengthen content creators’ rights, particularly when challenging the validation of their ownership on streaming platforms.

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That is why when dogs vex, they attack and bite us rof rof without mercy. They normally bite men; I didn’t understand why until recently!

Now I understand why I was once attacked by my dog. Cadafi was the first to welcome me back from work until one day it went bonkers and attacked me.

All because I was using its ‘intellectual property’ without giving it credit.

Meanwhile, I used to pour milk into a bowl for this dog to lick and lick and lick.

Around that same time, my roof also started leaking because it was the rainy season and I had to call a carpenter to come and seal all the leakages but still, my house leaked anytime it rained until I engaged the services of a roofing company.

It was then they told me how my roof leaked. They attributed it to the poor job done by the carpenter.

I am worried because it is raining nowadays pa! Hmmm! As for we, men er, the vetting committee at heaven’s gate will by all means ask us questions as to why we copied the dog without paying royalties and still give them leftover food.

But some dogs at Yeast Legon eat better food than some people I know o. Poverty…kpakpakpa away…kpakpakpa…away! Poverty is a crime, ei! Poverty, gerrout! In Jesus name! amen!

Dogs are the most transparent animals in the world. They are so loyal to owners that when they are not happy with you, they turn away and you can see them physically doing so.

But when a human being turns away from you er, it is difficult to tell especially if they keep smiling with you. Be guided! That is why dogs do the ‘thing’ in public for everybody to see so that when there is a problem, there will be no need for a witness.

Without their openness, they go dey explain without evidence. Whatever you are thinking has nothing to do with this heading; it is real life, no bi so? Anyway, men and women prefer it to any other ‘waste of time style’.

Can’t you see the dog is not bothered about who steals their copyright? If only dogs knew how adult human beings are benefitting from the continuous legacy they have left for us er, they would have sued us long ago.

The only side effect is the gas ‘this mode of transport’ produces especially when one of the ‘participants’ has eaten fried eggs and beans the previous night. Ogidigi! Alla!

Take life easy as in 100 years, 99.9 per cent of humans who are alive today may be in another world.

If I see any of you in 100 years roaming around town wasting fuel and food by ‘hat’ er, hey hey! Let’s enjoy life with some of the ‘craziest things’ like this abstract write-up which has no meaning or value. It is just like well; no nutritional value but we still enjoy chewing well even though sometimes we would want to rebel by getting stuck in our teeth.

Last Saturday recorded the highest number of funerals I’d had to attend. I attended 6 six such funerals and the oldest of the deceased was 50 years. I was aged 34 years, 36, 23, 18, and even 15! The youth – Why? Let us go for regular check-ups.

Sometimes the first sign of having a serious medical condition without one knowing is ‘gone too soon! We talk about blood pressure but kidney, and liver disorders, reckless driving and some terrible lifestyles are equally dangerous.

No one knows tomorrow but some people are just blessed in addition to what they do responsibly to live longer lives! 80 years old and they are still strong and going.

Mr Eusebius Agodzo who had worked with the Meat Marketing Board, and the Ministry of Environment, among others, has the secret to enjoying life even after 80. He shared his secret with us last Sunday at his 80th birthday party at Abelenkpe.

According to him, the secret to having a healthy life is as follows: having a clean heart and positive thoughts towards everyone. No scheming of evil against anyone and FORGIVING people unconditionally’.

May you live another 80 years to come, Agodzogan Senior! We love you, Daddy!

Don’t think about his advice; just offend somebody deliberately; he or she needs it! My wife is my target this evening; I am going to consciously offend her by removing one leg from under the bed so that when she lies on it, the bed will give way and she will fall. As she falls, the rats under the bed will scatter and then I laugh ‘kwakwakwakwa! Don’t mind me. This ‘useless talk’ keeps me going! It is the only form of madness that keeps me walking hundreds of kilometres with distinction from the Dansoman to Ofankor barrier. Y3nbr33y3!
Today is Friday and no advice is taken seriously except this kind of ‘useless’ write-ups which have no meaning.

Don’t toy with the heart of your wife o. I had a little fight with my wife regarding too much Amani in my soup and she bore roff! The following day while enjoying my Saturday morning reggae music blurring from my home theatre, I saw her in a moody state. She went to complain to her father that she heard me playing Lucky Dube’s ‘It’s not Ezay’ and she felt this was a threat to her because she didn’t understand why ‘it’ should be easy for me to start with. What broke her heart the more was the fact that immediately after that Lucky Dube song, I played Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman No Cry’ which according to her suggested that I could live without her. The truth is that despite the ‘misbehaviour’ of most of us men, we still want a woman at home. After all, who doesn’t want ‘problems’? Ajai!

Anyway since then, I’ve stopped playing the above songs and now only play ‘Love Doesn’t Ask Why’ by Who Else? Celine Dion, or? I am waiting for her reaction the day she hears me play Nana Tufuor’s ‘Miyiri Dadeey San b3 wari me’ (My ex-wife, come back to me…’ She is likely to assume I have an ex-wife, abi? I don’t blame her. Even the day Adam went out and came home late, Eve quietly used her mobile phone torchlight to check from his ribs whether God had not taken one more rib out to create another woman somewhere for Adam as Eve’s rival. Adam was such an unlucky man; he didn’t have any side chic! Poor him; he never enjoyed! In all of these, remember: Sin fascinates and assassinates!

I was only enjoying my reggae with no such thoughts as she had o but see where it has landed me. Now my father-in-law who is a no-nonsense lawyer is after me. Anyway, he is a man too so he understands my problem, I think. I am glad it wasn’t my mum-in-law! Yes, yes, yes, would you believe that when I was much younger, anytime I heard Father-in-law, mother-in-law or daughter-in-law, I thought they were lawyers? I left them alone la ah!

On Mother’s Day, I requested a song to be played for my wife and the title of the song is “She’s the Queen” by Taurus Riley. On Father’s Day this year, guess the song this woman requested to be played for me on a radio station – “Odo kakra, sika kakra….Akosombo ey woy3 Chisel’ Me, Chisel?

One of the above songs made me remember the days when my late father used to send me to buy him a ‘Paul Maul’ cigarette or ‘55’! The first misleading information I was ever exposed to was when my father would send me to buy him ‘55’ and on the box of cigarettes was ‘555’! What is so difficult about calling all the ‘5s’? The second confusing word was ‘Diplomat’. I grew up only to realise that the word means a highly revered rep of one country in another country. Ah! ‘55’ and ‘Diplomat’, why?

If you already smoke, please be careful you don’t ‘exit’ this earth as a result of lung cancer which can be traced to heavy doses of smoking! The vetting committee at Heaven’s Gate will be waiting to ask whether you are a chimney or an exhaust pipe! Have a great weekend and continue to be good small, bad small. Don’t judge yourself; after all, no one is perfect!

The British singer-songwriter had denied stealing elements of the song for his 2014 worldwide hit.

Heirs of Gaye’s co-writer argued that Sheeran, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Publishing owed them money for copyright infringement.

Sheeran had said he would give up his music career if found guilty at the trial in New York.

“If that happens, I’m done, I’m stopping,” he said when asked about the toll the trial at Manhattan federal court was taking on him.

Sheeran stood up and hugged his team after jurors ruled that he “independently” created his song.

Speaking outside court, Sheeran said he was “obviously very happy” with the ruling.

“It looks like I’m not going to have to retire from my day job after all,” he said. “But at the same time I am absolutely frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all.

“If the jury had decided this matter the other way we might as well say goodbye to the creative freedom of songwriters.”

“I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake,” he added.

A musicologist for Sheeran’s defence told the court that the four-chord sequence in question was used in several songs before Gaye’s hit came out in 1973.

Kathryn Townsend Griffin, the daughter of Gaye’s co-writer Ed Townsend, accused Sheeran of copyright infringement. She walked swiftly past reporters smoking what appeared to be a cigarillo, saying only: “God is good all the time, all the time God is good.”

During the civil trial Sheeran sang and played parts of Thinking Out Loud on the guitar.

He said he wrote the song at home in England with his friend Amy Wadge, and had been inspired by his grandparents and a new romantic relationship he had just begun.

Sheeran’s lawyer, Ilene Farkas, told the jurors that similarities in the chord progressions and rhythms of the two songs were “the letters of the alphabet of music.”

“These are basic musical building blocks that songwriters now and forever must be free to use, or all of us who love music will be poorer for it,” she said.

How similar are Ed Sheeran and Marvin Gaye’s songs?

During the trial, Keisha Rice, who represented the heirs of Townsend, said her clients were not claiming to own basic musical elements but rather “the way in which these common elements were uniquely combined.”

“Mr Sheeran is counting on you to be very, very overwhelmed by his commercial success,” she said, urging jurors to use their “common sense” to decide whether the songs are similar.

Last year Sheeran won a copyright battle at the High Court in London over his 2017 Shape of You.

Sheeran is also facing claims over Thinking Out Loud from a company owned by investment banker David Pullman that holds copyright interests in the Gaye song.

In 2015 Gaye’s heirs won a $5.3m judgment from a lawsuit claiming the Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams song Blurred Lines copied Gaye’s Got to Give It Up.

After declining to give the OVO label artiste the green light to sample his Oye Ohene remix song which featured Tinny, Drake went ahead to release his Calling My Name song without clearance.

According to the suit in the jurisdiction of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, Calling My Name (the “Infringing Work”), which was released by Defendant Drake on or about June 17, 2022, contains direct copying—or “sampling”—of vocal excerpts taken from the sound recording of Obrafour’s copyrighted work.

Meanwhile, Obrafour confirmed that he received an email from Drake’s team on June 8, 2022, requesting clearance, but there was no deal to that effect.

“Obrafour had not yet responded to the June 8, 2022 Clearance Email or the follow up June 13, 2022 Clearance Email. Drake’s ‘Honestly, Nevermind’ album was
released on June 17, 2022,” the suit added.

Interestingly, Obrafour is seeking for damages, in aggregate, in an amount not less than $10,000,000.

Listen to Obrafour’s Oye Ohene intro below:

Listen to Drake’s version below:

Check out the suit below:

Obrafour sues Drake by Dennis Adu on Scribd

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According to Sarkodie, lots of creatives put in lots of effort to churn out visuals for their creative works, hence he supports Kirani Ayat for calling the government out publicly.

Kirani Ayat has been in a back and forth with the Tourism Ministry after President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo tweeted a video to promote Ghana, which had excerpts of his “Guda” visuals.

Reacting to this, Pure Akan asked the government to compensate the musician since he broke his back to make it happen.

Meanwhile, the creative director, David Nicol-sey, who shot the video has also voiced out asking the government to do what is right since no permission was sought by the Tourism Ministry.

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They claim the studio did not have the rights to Ehud Yonay’s 1983 story “Top Guns” when it released the sequel Top Gun: Maverick last month.

The film earned $548m (£438m) globally in its first 10 days of release.

Paramount says the claim was “without merit” and vowed to contest it.

Top Gun: Maverick sees Cruise reprise his role as US navy pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell from the original 1986 film.

It had the fourth biggest opening weekend of any film in the Covid-era, behind the best-selling Spider-Man: No Way Home, second-place Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and then The Batman.

The lawsuit – filed on Monday at the Los Angeles federal court by Shosh and Yuval Yonay, Ehud’s widow and son – alleges that Paramount failed to reacquire the rights to Ehud’s magazine article after it was terminated under the US Copyright Act.

They are seeking unspecified damages from the film studio, including profits from Top Gun: Maverick.

According to the lawsuit, Paramount’s Top Gun franchise would not have existed without Ehud’s “literary efforts and evocative prose and narrative”.

The lawsuit said that in 2018, the Yonays informed Paramount that its rights to Ehud’s article would be terminated two years later.

It added that the studio lost the copyright for the piece in January 2020.

“Much as Paramount wants to pretend otherwise, they made a sequel to Top Gun after they lost their copyright,” lawyer Marc Toberoff, who is representing the Yonays, told the BBC.

Paramount said in a statement: “These claims are without merit, and we will defend ourselves vigorously.”

Mitra Ahouraian, a Los Angeles-based entertainment attorney, told the BBC that Paramount’s plans to produce Top Gun: Maverick in 2018 and release it in 2019 were delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Timing is going to be very important in this case because the notice of termination was sent… to have an effective date of 2020,” Ms Ahouraian explained.

The sequel sees Maverick return to the Top Gun flying academy as an instructor in charge of training a new generation of pilots.

It gave Hollywood superstar Cruise his first $100m (£80m) opening weekend at the box office. His previous biggest opening weekend came in 2005 with War of the Worlds, which raked in $64m (£51m).

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The star is accused of lifting his song’s “Oh I, oh I, oh I” hook from Sami Chokri’s 2015 single Oh Why.

In court, he sang elements of Nina Simone’s Feeling Good and Blackstreet’s No Diggity to illustrate how the melody is commonplace in pop music.

“If you put them all in the same key, they’ll sound the same,” he explained.

Sheeran denies having heard Mr Chokri’s song and rejected the suggestion that friends might have played it to him before he wrote Shape of You in October 2016.

His upbeat pop track became 2017’s best-selling single and remains the most-played song of all time on Spotify.

But Sheeran’s royalties – estimated to be about £20m – have been frozen since Mr Chokri and his co-writer Ross O’Donoghue claimed copyright infringement in 2018.

Court hears voice memos

Lawyers for the pair played the court excerpts from the Shape of You recording sessions as they built their case.

In one recording, Sheeran could be heard saying he needed to change the “oh I” melody because it was “a bit close to the bone”.

“We thought it was a bit too close to a song called No Diggity by Blackstreet,” the star told the court. “I said that… we should change it.”

Asked whether his final melody bore a similarity to Chokri’s song, he added: “Fundamentally, yes. They are based around the minor pentatonic scale [and] they both have vowels in them.”

Andrew Sutcliffe QC, representing Mr Chokri and Mr O’Donoghue, asked: “It was a phrase you already had in your head after listening to the chorus of Sam’s song, wasn’t it?”

“No,” Sheeran replied.

The singer was also accused of being an “obsessive music squirrel” who consumed music “voraciously” and would have been aware of Mr Chokri’s music.

“I’m a music fan, I like music, I listen to music,” Sheeran said. But he insisted he had “disappeared for the whole year” in 2016 and was “not plugged in” to the UK music scene.

A collaborative effort

Sheeran was repeatedly asked who had come up with the “oh I” phrase, but explained it had been a collaborative effort with his co-writers Steve Mac and Johnny McDaid.

“It was all of us three bouncing back and forth in a circle,” he said. “That was how it originated.”

“Three people could not create the germ of the melody,” suggested Mr Sutcliffe.

“Why can’t three people create a melody?” Sheeran replied.

The court also heard how Sheeran tweaked the first version of Shape of You to remove elements that were similar to the Bill Withers song Grandma’s Hands and TLC’s No Scrubs.

“Your approach is take it, change it and make lots of money, isn’t it?” Mr Sutcliffe asked the star.

“No,” he replied, later adding that a “musicologist went over the song [Shape of You] and found similarities and we changed the similarities”.

Sheeran pointed out that he had sought clearance from TLC’s writers, although they had not responded by the time his song was released. They were later given a credit on the track.

Unreleased song played

The star disclosed that Shape of You was originally envisioned for Little Mix or Rihanna, and that he had not wanted to release it on his multi-platinum Divide album.

“I thought this song clashed with Castle On The Hill. It doesn’t fit with the rest of the album,” he said. “I didn’t want to put it out and I was subsequently proved wrong.”

The singer briefly became irritated when a snippet of an unreleased song was mistakenly played to the court.

“That’s a song I wrote last January. How did you get that?” he asked, glancing at his lawyers. “I want to know how you got that.”

It was later explained that some of the music played to the court was coming from Steve Mac’s personal laptop, and the wrong folder had been accidentally accessed.

Sheeran and his co-authors launched legal proceedings in May 2018, asking the High Court to declare they had not infringed Mr Chokri and Mr O’Donoghue’s copyright.

In July 2018, Mr Chokri and Mr O’Donoghue issued their own claim for “copyright infringement, damages and an account of profits in relation to the alleged infringement”.

Mr Sutcliffe accused Sheeran and his co-writers of issuing what he called a “slapp suit” intended to “intimidate” his clients with the burdensome cost of a legal defence “until they abandon their claim”.

“No I wanted to prove I was right,” he replied. “I’m trying to clear my name here.”

The case continues.

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