Musician Fuse ODG has also claimed ownership of some excerpts in the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA)’s promotional video that featured President Akufo-Addo.
In a press statement released by his company, New Africa Nation, the musician’s team revealed that some scenes were picked from his video ‘New African Girl’.
“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,” they noted.
Beneath the deep blue sky, the Black Star is calling. Follow the stars and let them take you on a journey of our people. I invite everyone to the country at the centre of the world – #Ghana
. #VisitGhana2022 pic.twitter.com/2m5KC2QTkt
— Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) September 27, 2022
They added that “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.”
This comes after musician Kirani Ayat called out the Tourism Ministry and the Authority for copyright infringement.
A video shared on President Akufo-Addo’s social media handles promoting tourism used footage from his ‘Guda’ music video.
Kirani Ayat who was not pleased to see his work used without his consent noted that he spent money in making the video without aid from anyone and yet he was not compensated after his content was used.
“The president of Ghana has used my video “GUDA” in this ad to promote Ghana. I was actively reaching out to the Ministry of Tourism in 2018/19 to use this video to push tourism in the North and got NO reply, yet today it’s in an ad and no one reached out to me for permission,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Fuse ODG believes their rights were infringed upon because of the lack of respect and understanding of intellectual property.
“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.”
The singer noted that they hope the GTA and the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture invest in more education around intellectual property both internally and for the creative sector.
The last few days have exposed an issue in Ghana that goes beyond the Office of the President, Ghana
— Fuse ODG (@FuseODG) September 29, 2022
“In the meantime, our legal team is in discussion with the Ministry and their legal team in order to resolve this issue,” he added.
