Finally, it seems the outcry of several musicians have fallen on the listening ears of the Ghana Music Rights Organization (GHAMRO), as the Chairman of the organization, Rex Omar, has revealed that his outfit has revamped its royalty collection system.
According to Rex Omar, GHAMRO now collaborates with an Irish company that helps to identify the songs being played on all radio and TV stations across the country and also come up with a new payment system.
In an interview, Mr. Omar explained that, unlike previous years when an artist’s album among others, influenced how much he or she got paid, the new system will indicate which song was played from which artist, the time it was played, how long the song was played, the radio station that played the song and every other detail.
“The system will aggregate the number of songs of each registered artiste that were played and then from the logging, we know which artistes to pay and how much to pay them”.
Rex Omar
Mr. Omar noted that now, the number of songs from an artist that is played will determine how much money they will earn as royalties.
“Last December, we logged over 131 radio stations across the country. We know that some people’s songs are played at parties but not on radio. So, in order not to disrupt the system and have people complaining that we are only paying those whose songs have been logged, we decided to give 60% to every registered musician so that the 40% goes to those whose songs were logged”.
Rex Omar
This, Rex Omar explained, is part of the many efforts GHAMRO is making to ensure that artistes are essentially paid their due.
In September, 2021, GHAMRO announced new measures to aid in their royalty collections. Rex Omar revealed that his outfit had signed a deal with a new digital royalty collection body, Capasso. According to him, Capasso collects the digital royalties for artistes and right owners as part of GHAMRO’s efforts to digitalize its operations to enable creators earn their due from their works.
Speaking in an interview, Mr. Omar explained that this deal ensures that the digital rights licensing company provides monitoring systems to help track songs of Ghanaian right owners on digital platforms.
The royalty payment system in Ghana has been a major problem, which has hindered the growth of the industry, especially for musicians who are not able to get what’s due them because of structural challenges of royalty collection.
One artist who has been on the neck of the organiztion’s executives to restructure their operations is Stonebwoy. Just recently, Stonebwoy after admonishing the organization to work properly, congratulated the outfit for increasing his royalty payment.
“GHAMRO this year 2022! The royalty system must work properly, I promise to push until it’s fixed. No fights, no disrespect intended, let’s face the issues now! The sudden increase in royalty is pure PR, I have congratulated you on that anyway”.
StoneBwoy
Stonebwoy on his Twitter page confirmed that he received four times of what he used to receive previously after Mr. Rex Omar told him to fulfill his promise of promoting the organization if they start making an impact.
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