GAPI Secretary joins M-COSGA

The General Secretary of the Ghana Association of Phonographic Industry (GAPI), Francis Mensah Twum has finally joined the Music Collection Society of Ghana (M-COSGA).

This comes as a surprise to pundits in the music fraternity as Mensah Twum has been a prime architect in the formation of the Ghana Music Right Owners Organization (GAMRO) which gave birth to the Ghana Music Rights Protection Society (GAMORPS) as a rival organisation to M-COSGA.

With the coming into force of the Copyright Act 690, music right owners, that is composers, publishers and producers, have the prerogative to form their private collection societies to collect royalties for the use and exploitation of music on the airwaves and at bars, banks, internet cafes, night clubs, etc.

This unfortunately hasn't happened as stakeholders have taken entrenched positions on formats and composition of executives for the societies.

The situation has further been compounded by the inability of successive governments to holistically look at the music industry as a lucrative segment of the grey areas of the economy by passing appropriate laws and legislatures to guide the industry.

The end result is loss of millions of cedis to the beneficiaries and also to the nation in the form of badly needed taxes.

The level of bankruptcy for producers and poverty of musicians has now reached astronomical levels, a situation that is unprecedented in the country's history.

This has also stifled creativity as production of musical products has been on limited budgets leading to mediocre productions which don’t meet international standards.

In an exclusive interview with Beatwaves in Accra, Mr. Twum disclosed that his decision to join M-COSGA was informed by discontinuing, henceforth, “with the protracted circle of agitation” and to come to the basics of working with the scanty resources that is available to the industry as the first step of laying the foundation in readiness for the passage of the legislative instrument (LI) that would guide    the operations of collection societies in the not-too-distant future.

According to him, it is in the best interest of the industry to dialogue with the new government so as to place the music industry on its development agenda.

He congratulated the President, Prof. J.E.A. Mills and his party the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the hard-won election and asked them to take seriously the creative industry as a growing and relevant segment of the country's economy.

He called on stakeholders as well as the players in the music industry to consider deeply the need for all to see the essence in presenting a united front as the surest means of dealing with the myriad of problems confronting the industry.

< Prev		Next >