Amandzeba Nat Brew, GHAMRO board member
The relentless war on piracy by the Ghana Music Rights Organization (GHAMRO) dubbed ‘Operation Jail the Pirates’ has resulted in a two-year jail term at the Nsawam Maximum Security Prison for 230-year-old Kofi Gyamfi for copyright infringement.
This occurred when AMA Motor and Sanitation Court at Abeka sentenced Gyamfi to a fine of six thousand Ghana Cedis (60 million old cedis) or in lieu of that, serve two years in prison after he pleaded guilty to the offence of reproducing and distributing musical and audiovisual works contrary to section 42(1) of Copyright Act 690.
Prosecuting, Inspector Hansen Armah told the court that on January 28, this year, the complainant, Eric Tetteh, together with his colleague members of the GHAMRO Taskforce in collaboration with the police, proceeded to Achimota and Lapaz lorry stations and found seven men, namely Kofi Gyamfi, Louis Ahiableh, Yaw Asante, Sampson Amegator, Justice Oppong, Yaw Mike, and Nicholas Nuamah, 1st to 7th accused persons respectively, with laptops and other devices copying and selling songs unlawfully for commercial purposes without authorization of Music Right Owners represented by GHAMRO.
They were subsequently arrested, sent to Tesano Police Station and processed for court. Gyamfi pleaded guilty and was sentenced, but the other six who pleaded not guilty were remanded at Nsawam Prison and subsequently granted bail in the sum of one thousand Ghana cedis each. They have since appeared before court several times.
In another development, the GHAMRO Taskforce has conducted a massive raid on music pirates simultaneously in three different locations- Osu, 37 and Labadi Palm Wine junction, during which several persons illegally downloading and selling songs were apprehended and sent to the Tesano Police Station. They are to appear before court on Friday May 17.
GHAMRO Taskforce head Daniel Adjei, aka Dan Ray stated that the war on piracy will continue until sanity prevails in Ghana’s Music Industry.
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