In the post by the President, an excerpt of Kirani Ayat's 'Guda' music video was used. According to the Ghanaian musician, it comes as a surprise to him because he once contacted the Ministry of Tourism to use the video but the ministry ignored his message.
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Compensate Ayat Kirani; says Fuse ODG as he also calls out gov't over copyright infringement
Fuse ODG and his New Africa Nation have added their voice to the Ayat Kirani copyright brouhaha after Ghana's President, Nana Addo, used an excerpt of Ayat's music video for a Visit Ghana campaign without his permission.
Fuse ODG
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Ayat is now demanding compensation from the government as according to him, he worked as a security officer for one week to be able to save money to create the video and he has gotten the support of Fuse ODG, Sarkodie and others.
Kirani Ayat
Kirani Ayat
Pulse Ghana
Via a press statement issued by New Africa Nation, the outfit owned by Fuse ODG disclosed that a video of the 'Azonto' singer has also been used by the government for the Year of Return campaign without any compensation.
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The statement sai,d "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 sympathise 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.
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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," the statement concluded.
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