About GHAMRO
GHAMRO also known as Ghana Music Rights Organization is one of the Collective Management Organizations formed out of the Copyright
Society of Ghana (COSGA) in 2012 under section 49 of the Copyright law, the auspices of the Attorney General’s Office and the Copyright
Society of Ghana (COSGA) in 2012 under section 49 of the Copyright law, the auspices of the Attorney General’s Office and the Copyright
Office to manage music copyrighted work. It is regulated under the Copyright Legislative Instrument 1962 and mandated by the Copyright Act,
2005 Act 690 to license, collect, and distributes royalties gained from used copyrighted musical works. The Society has three hierarchical bodies
which are: General Assembly (membership), Board/Directors and Administration
Like all other copyright societies, GHAMRO is a non-profit corporate body. All fees collected by it, after allowing for administrative expenses, are distributed among the authors, publishers, and other right owners concerned, in proportion to the use which has been made of their works.
GHAMRO is affiliated to composers’ societies all over the world, and through a system of reciprocal agreements it authorises all those societies to administer the music of Ghanaian authors, publishers/producers and other right owners in their particular countries. Conversely, GHAMRO administers in its own territory, not only the music of its Ghanaian members, but also the great store of music in the repertoires of all those other societies – in other words, the music of over 1,000,000 composers, authors and producers in some 150 countries.
In this way GHAMRO renders an invaluable service to the users of music in Ghana. GHAMRO makes the music user’s task very simple for a single and very moderate annual payment, GHAMRO issues a licence authorising the licensee to use any music in the world-wide repertoire which it represents. Having made that single payment each year, the licensee is secure in the knowledge that GHAMRO holds him covered, and that he can perform in public any music in GHAMRO’s repertoire without the fear of being sued for infringement of copyright.
Organizational Structure
GHAMRO is governed by a Board of Directors comprising 15 non-executive directors. Seven of the directors are writer members and five are publisher members, all of whom are directly elected by the membership. In addition, there are three external directors on the Board. External Directors are not members of GHAMRO and they are appointed by the Board on the basis of the particular expertise and skills they can bring to the workings of the Board.
