The former Board Chairman of the Ghana Music Rights Organisation (GHAMRO), Rex Omar has implored Ghanaian artistes to register their music with GHAMRO before demanding music royalties.

According to him, while serving as Chairman for GHAMRO he realised Ghanaian artistes were reluctant to register their songs with the Association but demand royalties.

He explained that GHAMRO can only provide royalties to artistes who have registered with the organization.

“…that is why we came together to form our own company so the company will deal with the radio stations and music users on our behalf. GHAMRO is a private organization registered by the right owners themselves, but if you do not become a member and you go and sit somewhere and say give me royalties, you are crying for nothing,” he said at the Showbiz Roundtable organised by Joy Entertainment at the Labadi Beach Hotel on Saturday, October 29, 2022.

He said the perception that GHAMRO collects all music royalties of musicians is inaccurate.

He noted that despite digital streaming platforms available for musicians to get some royalties, they still need to sign up with GHAMRO so that royalties that they cannot monitor, GHAMRO makes it available to them.

“The ones that you yourself cannot chase. Can you imagine that the numerous artistes in Ghana, everybody is going from Radio station to radio station to go and collect royalties, it will be chaos,” he added.

The thought-leadership forum, themed ‘Music Business and Tourism’, aims at delving deep into, and moving conversations from simply identifying some of the industry’s woes, to sharing ideas and insights that are critical to the growth and progress of the creative industry.

As a keynote speaker, Mr Rex Owusu Marfo spoke on the topic, “Importance of royalties to the life of the musician”.