Over the years, we’ve heard of cries from both established and upcoming Ghanaian film-makers in relation to how certain unscrupulous people continue to pirate their works, a total disregard for their intellectual property rights.
The cries are genuine and from online to our streets, several people are making quick bucks from the hard work of our film-makers by stealing their movies and cheaply selling or offering them to African movie lovers who care less about the politics of ownership and intellectual property rights.
For many African movie enthusiasts, they just want to watch a movie and if it’s available, they will watch—irrespective of whether the person selling/offering the movie has the right to do so or has the right to upload the movie online.
Therefore, the many intellectual property thieves would go every mile to get their hands on African movies belonging to others for the irresponsible ready to watch market.
This has created an unending battle between Ghanaian film-makers and the various thieves; with a world wide audience unmoved by the loss the actions of these thieves bring the film-makers.
Consequently, many Ghanaian film-makers have locked their cameras in the dark room while they struggle to find alternative source of earnings—with Socrate Sarfo being a popular example.
On the face of it, It’s pretty sad to see those investing huge sums of money in our film industry make little or no money while those who invest nothing, make huge profits on the back of copyright violations/piracy.
But if you look beyond the veil, many Ghanaian film-makers themselves are intellectual property thieves, who continue to infringe on the copyright of others—but ironically, expect their copyrights to be respected.
A young Ghanaian musician friend of mine based in London-DeeVs called my phone one early Saturday morning to find out what he could do about the fact that a well established Ghanaian film production house-Venus Films, had used one of his songs-‘DeeVS ft Bisa Kdei – Yebeko’ in their movie ‘What My Wife Doesn’t Know’ without any compensation or permission.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgEUhQz9MVg
And to his disappointment, I told him he can’t do anything. Perhaps, he would want to waste his time and resource on a copyright lawsuit against Venus films in a country where people take what belong to others for free without any consequence.
It’s just not my friend whose intellectual property rights have been infringed on by Ghanaian film-makers who complain bitterly of the same violation by pirates. In fact, the whole industry literally dwells on copyright violations.
I cannot count the number of times I have heard various songs of Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Ja Rule, Rihanna, Celine Dion and other artistes being used in Ghanaian movies without any permission or agreeable compensation.
It’s just not the music, even visuals or shots are stolen from other films (both foreign and domestic) by certain film-makers who tend to complain about others stealing their works built on the back of thievery—a clear case of a pot calling the kettle black.
In a recent conversation with a certain Ghanaian film-maker, he wrongly but boldly asserted that the use of a single song of an artiste without compensation or permission cannot be compared to having your entire movie pirated.
Of course, to him his film is more important than someone’s song but that is not the reasonable position. If anything at all, the maxim “He who comes into equity must come with clean hands” should tell our film-makers that, perhaps, they are being paid in their own coins and they surely deserve it.
Maybe when our film-makers begin to respect the copyright of others and pay compensation for the usage of people’s works, they would see a shift in the increasing pattern of piracy, a practice which is ending the careers of many.
We seem stuck with a film industry full of film-makers who only do not ‘carbon copy’ foreign films and make it their own but also decorate these films with the hit songs of others without permission. And yet, they have the impudence to mount constant assault on others doing the same, pirating their works.
I am not by any stretch of logic endorsing the existing culture of piracy but I find it absurd that those crying over copyright violations are violators themselves. If this must end, those suffering the most (the film-makers) must define grounds by setting a good example..