Edem calls on Government/Creative Arts Industry to make Royalty System Laws Effective

Sunday, 18/2/2018 marked exactly one week when death laid its cold hands on Ghanaian dancehall/Afro pop diva, Ebony and two others who were returning from Sunyani after a family visit. The family of the deceased, government officials, colleague musicians, media personalities and fans were all gathered in Dansoman for her one week celebration.

Volta Regime Music Group  (V.R.M.G) boss was there to mourn his colleague’s untimely departure too. He then took to his Twitter page to cough out his displeasure about royalty system in Ghana. He tweet reads: “A state burial for Ebony would be meaningless if it doesn’t follow through with royalties for her family to benefit. We need royalty systems to work. So creative people don’t work in pain and die in vain after the hard work” he reiterated. He noticed Ebony had worked hard enough and her family deserve to be paid her royalties. He therefore pleaded with the government to enforce the royalty laws with immediate effect.

Upon chancing on Edem’s assertion, countless questions started popping out immediately concerning the topic of royalty. On the issue of royalty, I don’t really know it’s general overview in Ghana, but if intellectual property law and licensing systems has not yet gone through significant adjustments and screening over the years as a result of the rise of digital music, but much of the industry’s historic legal framework remains. Then Ghana music industry has a huge vacuum to fill up, in fact it is not qualified to be labeled as a creative industry because there’s no law protecting the intellectual properties of those involved.

In other parts of the world, their music industry relies on royalties generated by the licensing of copyrighted songs and recordings as a primary form of payment for musicians. This at least can fill the pockets of artists whenever their songs are aired at the pub, on radio, clubs, funerals, parties, etc. What is preventing Ghana from embracing the royalty system? It’s about time to start thinking about music in legal terms. MUSIGHA, GHAMRO, Ministry of creative arts & culture and every other organization that falls within the sphere of the creative industry must hedge together to champaign and champion this course.

With that been said, watch out for Edem’s fourth studio album “The African Answer” this year.