Rapper Kirani Ayat has asserted that copyright infringement, in his experience, results from carelessness and not ignorance as some may believe.
Due to poor law enforcement, people who violate copyright laws ask themselves “after all, what will happen to me?” Ayat argued.
He spoke to Nana Kwesi Asare on The Big Show on Class 91.3 FM, Saturday, April 22, 2023.
“The long and short of it all is there is no accountability so people do whatever they want,” Ayat stressed.
Tuesday, September 27, 2022, Ayat, via Twitter, confronted President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for using a footage of his critically acclaimed Guda music video without his permission.
President Akufo-Addo had tweeted a video montage advertising Ghana as a tourism haven.
The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) in a statement said the montage was not done by them but “was acquired legitimately from a bespoke creative agency as part of a project in 2019” and had in fact been in public circulation for about three years.
The so called “bespoke creative agency,” Samsal, denied greenlighting the video the GTA gave the president to share.
“We put together a video reel (“mood board”) which we showed to the GTA as inspiration and creative direction for the videos we intended to produce during the campaign. The mood board was a mash up of scenes from different videos including the video for Ayat’s “GUDA” and other videos shot by David Nicol-Sey, a fellow creative who we have worked with on several campaigns (and who directed the campaign video for Discovery Bands),” they further stated.
Later, it was reported that Kirani Ayat and the GTA were going to privately talk about the matter.
Thus, Nana Kwesi asked about the private meeting and compensation given the ‘Guda’ hitmaker.
“Yes, I was okay with the amount but there are other things that need to be done that are yet to be done,” Ayat answered.
“The compensation was for the use without my authorisation,” he clarified. “That’s the financial aspect.”
He said between him and the Ghana Tourism Authority and the Ministry of Tourism, “there are other things that we need to work out that are yet to happen and we’re waiting on that.”
He decried the perceived nonchalance of the above mentioned authorities saying that the “timeline for execution” is “dragging on.”
“We’re still giving them the benefit of the doubt since they’ve not said anything [like] they’re not going to do [it], but we’re yet to see it,” he added.
In Ghana “everyone moves on their own time. There’s no sense of urgency,” he lamented.
According to the singer-songwriter the entire experience has been “a constant learning process.”
“I’ve learnt how important [applying] pressure is to getting things done,” he added.
Also, the rapper noted that it is crucial, as a creative, to “have the right documentation with regards to your work.”
“That’s very important,” the singer-songwriter and rapper said. “When it comes to who’s involved in your work, and who owns what part of the work and all of that.”
Ayat’s latest offering ‘Affairs’ features Fameye and Akan.
Source: classfmonline.com
