Musicians need to know their creative and legal rights – Ibrahim Nayi, IP Consultant

Maccasio Zero to Hero Album Launch at the Tamale Sports Tamale

Story: Rahamatu-Lahi Zakaria || Sanatu Zambang

Musicians do not know their Rights-Ibrahim Nayi, IP Consultant

The northern music industry has come a long way. In the beginning, most artistes did not have managers. What they had were producers who controlled everything from the production to the sales of music. The power came with some entitlement where producers, thinking because they invested in the recording of the song, make them the sole owners of the work.

Ibrahim Nayi, an intellectual property consultant during a podcast session in the studios of Sanatu Zambang explained how copyrights work when it comes to ownership in music according to the copyright law in Ghana.

‘’When a work (Song/movie/art) is created. We at the copyright office first look at three major components, who have invested what and where.

Labour: The originality and creator of the idea. The late nights and daily hustle that was put into the birthing of the idea/product.

Creativity and Judgement: The making/producing of the artist, that’s the musician and the engineer after producing, the musician pays for the work done. So, the engineer doesn’t own any rights to the song again.

Investment: The producer then brings in the money for mass production. Now the producer becomes the copyright claimant.

So, at the copyright office we ask, who is the author and who is the claimant.”

”However, that’s not what is happening in the creative art industry. Producers are taking advantage of the artist; they control and take over the moral and economic rights of artist work and labor’’. He added

He however explained that artists can sell the economic rights of their work but not moral rights. Most artistes in the industry do not make money from their talents and toil. Artistes are more interested in releasing music but what comes after that is no longer an issue for them. This he attributed to the fact that artistes do not know their rights and are not ready to learn the business aspect of the industry, where to make money, and the procedures they need to follow to get the full worth of their work.

‘’Most of our artists in the industry do not know that whatever they are creating they have rights. If you do not know something how do you protect it? As an artist, you should be able to decipher what constitutes a musical work and a sound recording.

That is your portfolio, that is your property, your asset, it is just like someone decides to go to the farm while you also decide to channel your strength to singing. At the end of the season, the person is coming home with yam, maize, and millet. You are also putting your time and everything into music so, at the end of the day, you must be able to get something from your music to buy maize because you did not go to the farm.’’

For artistes to be able to enjoy this and make a decent living from the music that, they have decided to pursue, then, they need to start seeing themselves more than just an individual singing. According to Mr. Nayi ‘’A musician is an institution. When I see a musician working alone, I consider him a greedy person ‘’.

He advised artists to see themselves as institutions who will have lawyers, secretaries, managers, accountants, and other relevant professionals who will help them look for loopholes and avenues to collect their money for them using the law on copyrights as well as getting sponsorship deals for them to grow their career.

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