The Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) has entered into a long-term partnership with Gocreate Africa, a music distribution company, to digitize the Ghanaian music ecosystem.
It is also to aid in data management, royalty collection, and copyright protection.
The problem of data collection for royalties for musicians had been a major setback for the music industry over past years with artistes not being able to earn more from their works.
But according to Mr. Asha Gangali, Managing Director of Gocreate Africa, the platform would maximize revenue opportunities for artistes with regards to the collection of royalties, because they would provide the data to enable artistes to know where their music was being played around the world.
Speaking at the Ghana Music Industry Conference in Accra on Tuesday, Mr. Gangali said: “Our partnership would provide MUSIGA with the need for the collection of royalties for its members.
“Firstly, we created a portal where MUSIGA members can register so that their works would be monitored all around the world, thus whether it is played on TV, radio, among others.
“This platform would enable the Collective Management Organization (CMO) to know whose music is being played so that they can collect the money and pay musicians.
So, we have come on board to provide the necessary data, which would also aid the government to get their taxes, with artistes also having their share.”
Mr. Bessa Simons, Acting President of MUSIGA, in his address said this partnership would be the turning point for the union as they solicit for their royalties from CMOs which would be made much easier due to the availability of data.
“We have started digitizing everything at MUSIGA. The aim is to digitize the music industry by having a portal where musicians can sell their music through streaming and also create a unique identity for musicians on various digital music platforms.
“It offers a big pool for the collection of data for artistes and would make the MUSIGA very strong thus with regards to the easy collection of royalties from all over the world,” he said.
