Works of musicians who feature in Metro TV’s Ad cycle will now attract an amount of GH¢30 (¢300,000) per music video. This, the station stated, was part of a new policy to pay for works of both musicians and songwriters. “For every week of booked airplay on Metro TV Ad cycle, the featured artiste and songwriter will receive a royalty payment of ¢300,000 per the music video,” a Metro TV release stated. Should a music video be played voluntarily by Metro TV as a filler, GH¢5 (¢50,000) would be credited to the song, the release went on. An appearance fee ranging from GH¢30-GH¢50 (¢300,000-¢500,000), depending on the status of the artiste, would be paid for any interview on Metro programmes. These came to light when key musicians like Osibisa’s Mac Tontoh, Gyedu Blay Ambolley, Carlos Sakyi, Felix Bell, Paa Kwesi Holdbrook-Smith and Kwesi Arkaah paid a courtesy call on the Chief Executive Officer of Metro TV, Mr. Talal Fattal, to find out how the station was supporting Copyright in Ghana. The CEO told the musicians that to ensure the effectiveness of the package, rigorous and detailed logging of all musical works is used by Metro TV for its top rated entertainment programmes such as Advertising Cycle, KSM’s “Thank God It’s Friday”, Morning Ride, Allo Tigo, Music & Copyright among others. The first batch of cheques would be issued to deserving musicians on August 1, 2007 at the Kama Conference Centre and would cover musical videos used on the Ad Cycle over the past three months. Payments would be made on quarterly basis and shared in the ratio of 60% to the composer and 40% to the performer. The musicians expressed pleasure at the package from Metro TV, which they said would encourage musicians since it would reward them for their sweat and initiative. They called also on music users and radio and TV stations to emulate Metro TV’s initiative. Musicians and other copyright owners, they went on, should insist on payment anytime their musical property was used. Due to the absence of a logging system, many deserving musicians have not benefited from the use of their works, leading to the collection of monies through a system called blanket licenses. The money when collected is shared among many other musicians, some of whose works are not featured on the broadcast networks. Source: ghanamusic