Communications Minister calls for stiffer punishment on plagiarism
Accra {Greater Accra} 04 April
2000.
The Minister of Communications, Mr
John Mahama on Monday stressed the need to put in place safeguards to protect
literary works and called for stiffer punishment for people who reproduce works
of others without lawful authority.
He said it is an open secret that
photocopying and other reprographic methods, libraries, lecturers and
activities of students in tertiary institutions have seriously affected the
number of literary works that are actually sold.
Opening a three-day national
seminar on reprographic/reproduction rights in Accra, Mr Mahama said Cabinet
has approved the enactment of new Copyright Bill by Parliament.
The seminar being attended by 50
people from the arts, culture, book and music industries was organised by the
Copyright Office-Ghana in collaboration with the World Intellectual Property
Organisation (WIPO) and the International Federation of Reproduction Rights
Organisation.
It is designed to sensitise
authors and publishers on collective administration of their rights and to
educate users of literary works on their responsibility.
The Bill takes into consideration
new treaties that Ghana is a party to and the new technologies that are likely
to aid the infringement of copyright works, Mr Mahama said.
He said copyright protection is
basically about creativity, dissemination of information and derivation of
economic benefits from the works created.
"Government is committed to
ensuring that Copyright owners in general and, in this case, literary authors
and publishers receive adequate benefits for their creativity wherever these
works are used."
The Minister emphasised that
education and the book industry have a crucial roles to play for the
achievement of Vision 2020, the government's blueprint for socio-economic
development.
He called for the revival and
strengthening of reading culture in the country. Mr Mahama observed that these
days only a few people write books because of lack of motivation and stressed
that the rights of authors and publishers be protected from further abuse to
enable them to reap maximum returns for their efforts.
He expressed the hope that the
seminar would help in formulating concrete suggestions and guidelines to
protect original works of others.
Nana Akuako Sarpong, Chairman of
the National Commission on Culture said serious problems have engulfed literary
works and appealed to the participants to come out with suggestions to protect
authors.
Mr Eric Ofei, Managing Director of
Afram Publications, said photocopying and piracy are threats to the literary
industry.
He said writers, publishers,
journalists and translators are denied their genuine income and this
discourages investment in writing and publishing.
Mr Simon Ouedraogo, Representative
of WIPO, commended Ghana for the gigantic lead in introducing banderole, which
is to check the pirating of music on cassettes, and laws to protect the works
of people.
GRi…/