COPYRIGHT SOCIETY SUES FOUR

THE Copyright Society of Ghana (COSGA) has filed at suit at the Accra Fast Track High Court against Carlos Sakyi, a musician and three organisations, including Metro TV, for damages and an order to restrain them from printing, publishing or circulating a study they conducted on the Ghanaian music industry because it was defamatory.
According to COSGA, Metro TV and Optimum Media with funding from BUSAC Funds had published a document titled "Metro TV/BUSAC Project comparative study on the music industries of Ghana and South Africa".
On page 10 of that document, the plaintiff said the defendants purporting to assign reasons for the decline of the music industry in Ghana falsely and maliciously wrote, printed and published that "lack of accountability and transparency in operations of Copyright Society of Ghana, especially its flawed royalty distribution system that has deprived copyright owners of musical works of billions of cedis".
COSGA said, by those words, the defendants meant and were understood to mean that it was administering the rights of its members fraudulently and dishonestly and further meant that billions of cedis meant for COSGA members had been diverted.
The other defendants are BUSAC Funds, a non-governmental funding agency and Optimum Media Prime, a media company.
In its statement of claim, COSGA said Sakyi and Metro TV had for sometime now pursued an agenda of undermining its operations and that Metro TV had on several occasions opened its station to Sakyi to make wild and unfounded allegations against it with a view to creating disaffection among its rights holders.
It said Sakyi had on several occasions also used other radio stations and TV stations to attack the integrity of COSGA, its processes and operations to further their agenda.
"The words written, printed and published by the defendants also charges the plaintiff with incompetence and that the plaintiffs' members would be better off without the plaintiff", the statement said.
The plaintiff said its corporate character, credit and reputation had been greatly injured by reason of the defendant's action while they threaten and intended to continue the publication of those libellous statements on TV and radio.