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Copyright Investment Bank in the
offing
Accra, Nov. 6, Ghanadot/GNA -
Ghana Association of Phonographic Industries (GAPI), a group
of Ghanaian music producers in collaboration with Artpages
Creative Community Cooperative BA (APCCC) of Norway, has
finalized arrangements for the establishment of a Copyright
Investment Bank (CIB) in Ghana to support Ghanaian musicians
with micro-credit facilities.
This was contained a report from a survey conducted by GAPI
with some of the 680 million cedis support from the Business
Sector Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) for advocacy initiative
intend to promote Ghana's music industry.
The report titled; "Ghana's Music Industry - Support for the
Extension of Long Term Financing", said the cardinal
objectives of the CIB was to provide long-term financing and
to enable artistes to produce music without handing over
their Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).
It said the bank would provide credit directly to the
individual copyright owner (musicians and song writer) or
his/her appointed producer in the form of soft loans,
interest-free loans and counter-funding facilities, using
only their music works as collateral.
The report said the focus would initially be on musicians
with appreciable level of appeal and marketability on both
the local and Diaspora markets through online distribution
and mobile phone downloads among others, adding that the
package would initially benefit up to 200 selected musicians
from Ghana.
It said for each song the artiste would be provided with at
least 1,000 euros to cover the full production cost,
including hiring of studio, backing musicians, technicians,
services for cover arts, license for electronic clearing and
web/mobile hosting.
By inference therefore the production and online promotion
of a full album of 10 songs would benefit from a 10,000
euros credit from the bank.
Mr Francis Mensah Twum, General Secretary of GAPI, said the
bank would also source funds from other local and
international investors for onward lending to musicians and
artistes.
He confirmed a statement in the report that in order to
protect the investments of potential investors artistes
benefiting from the bank would be required to sign their
copyright to the financiers until the loans were repaid with
seven per cent interest.
Mr Twum pointed out that to ensure easy and speedy sale of
music works and therefore quick CIB loans repayment, GAPI in
collaboration with the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA),
had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bach
Technology AS of Norway for the establishment of an online
sales and cyberspace monitoring facility called meta-store
to ensure easy distribution of music works through the
internet and mobile phone downloads.
He said Bach Technology AS had rights to MPEG7 facility that
enabled it to sell music works through the internet in the
form of downloads and also to monitor the public use of such
works through cyberspace technology.
Mr Francis Twum said Bach Technology AS had already received
600,000 euros from the Norwegian Research Institute
specifically to put in place the necessary infrastructure,
beginning from January 2008, to enable Ghana and other
countries to be hooked to the meta-data-store facility.
"Beyond making and monitoring online sales, the
meta-data-store technology will also be used to monitor the
radio and TV airplay, and the use of songs in bars, discos,
restaurants, hotels and other public places and ensure that
money accruing from these places gets to the artiste," he
said.
He said GAPI had also managed to raise an unspecified amount
from its membership as its initial contribution to the
establishment of the bank.
The report noted that there was need to strengthen laws,
regulations and the general administration of the music
industry to ensure investor confidence.
In that respect the report noted that the Ghanaian music
industry as it was now, was plagued with copyright
administration challenges and that of piracy, which needed
to be checked to guarantee returns on investments of
musicians, producers and financiers.
"It is expected that by using the CIB as a module, GAPI and
its allies in the music industry would receive state support
for long-term financing of the music industry," the report
said.
GNA
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