GHAMRO dead, need for more collection agencies –Ded Buddy

MUSICIAN Eric Turkson, popularly known as Ded Buddy, has joined the bandwagon of musicians questioning Ghana Music Rights Organisation’s (GHAMRO) operations and believes the establishment of more collection agencies will solve the ineffective royalties collection and disbursement.

He mentioned that the woes of Ghanaian musicians would continue to deepen until the industry opened up and embraced other collective management organisations to rival GHAMRO.

In his view, GHAMRO could best be described as dead following their inability to meet up to their core mandate of collecting and properly distributing royalties to musicians.

“As I’m talking to you now, the last amount I received from GHAMRO as royalty was GH₵158 and that was even two years ago.

“Well, I cannot tell whether they have since sent because the amount is so insignificant that I don’t even monitor the number they send it to.

“But everyone can bear me witness that my songs are being played everywhere but is the royalty I receive reflecting the popularity of my songs?

“Unfortunately, Ghanaian musicians are labouring in vain, we are not benefiting from royalties and the frustrations expressed by musicians over the years tell the reality of this burden,” he told Graphic Showbiz in a recent interview.

The grievances of Ghanaian musicians over royalties were expected to end when GHAMRO was established in December 2011 following the liquidation of Copyright Society of Ghana (COSGA) in October of the same year.

A strong critic of COSGA, Highlife veteran and now Board Chairman of GHAMRO, Rex Omar, who played a crucial role in the establishment of GHAMRO back then, assured musicians of a better royalty system.

But it appears Rex Omar and the executives of GHAMRO have not lived up to that billing and are equally having their fair share of criticisms from musicians, who continuously lament about their poor royalties.

The likes of Shatta Wale, Ohemaa Mercy and Stonebwoy, along with many other musicians, have publicly called out GHAMRO for failing to pay royalties due to them.  

Ded Buddy, however, believes musicians bashing GHAMRO is not the solution but creating an enabling environment for the formation of more music rights agencies is the way to go.

“I’m a proud member of Alliance for Change, which is a collective agency led by Mark Darlington. The new organisation intends to bring the necessary stakeholders to create more opportunities for Ghanaian artistes.

“At the moment, I receive cheques for royalties every four months for writing just four lines of a song from a music right organisation outside. The amount is more than what GHAMRO has given me in more than six years. This is what I’m talking about,” he noted.