WASHINGTON — Join me in celebrating World IP Day, and yes, let’s emphasize the word “World.” Here at the Copyright Alliance we tend to focus on U.S. artists and creators, but creativity and cultural contributions are global. International treaties provide rights under law to artists around the world, but that doesn’t mean their own countries take steps to enforce their IP laws and protect their creators’ rights. That was clear today at the 5th annual World IP Day event here on Capitol Hill hosted by the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI). (See previous posts from the event on the incentive to create and on respect for artists and creators.)

Today’s event had a member of Congress, two visual artists from the Copyright Alliance grassroots network, professors, authors, and other compelling speakers. But by far the most compelling was Victor Tieku, the CEO of Kampsite Music. Never heard of him or his company? Mr. Tieku is a musician from Ghana, who founded Kampsite Records and Studios in 1995, and now aims to manage the rights to hundreds of thousands of songs by Ghanian songwriters and recording artists.

Ghana has laws in the books ensuring the rights of songwriters and recording artists, although the government-run rights collection agency makes no effort to collect playlists from radio stations in order to pay out the royalties it is collecting to individual creators. Also, a new law in Ghana that would allow individuals like Mr. Tieku to collect and distribute royalties has not been put into effect, even though it was passed years ago.

Mr. Tieku faces many, many challenges in his effort to ensure Ghanian creators are compensated for the use of their creative works. There is the issue of a government collection agency that has no incentive to distribute its royalty collection to songwriters. There is the issue of an inability (for now) under Ghanian law for him to proactively assist songwriters in royalty collection. There is the culture of infringement — “bootlegging,” he calls it — in his society that takes the disrespect other creators at the IPI event discussed today to an extreme.

But Mr. Tieku’s biggest challenge is getting Ghanian songwriters to understand that under Ghanian law and international treaty obligations globally, they have rights as songwriters. When they compose a song and record it, they own a right both to the sound recording and the composition. This is a foreign concept in a society where songwriters are never paid as songwriters, but a Ghanian songwriter has as much right to be paid for her creativity as a songwriter in Nashville.

I don’t mention Nashville by accident. Mr. Tieku’s panel was moderated by Southern Illinois U. School of Law Professor Mark Schultz, co-author with Alec van Gelder of one of my favorite academic studies, “Nashville in Africa: Culture, Institutions, Entrepreneurship and Development.” Mr. Schultz and Mr. van Gelder note how about ninety years ago, the landscape of central and eastern Tennessee was in many ways a developing economy, behind much of the U.S. To grow the region, policymakers focused on major public works (such as the Tennessee Valley Authority), just as developing countries often do, but it was an entrepreneur spreading the local music culture nationally that led Nashville to be a leading light of U.S. culture, and a major contributor to the U.S. economy and job creation.

As Mr. Schultz and Mr. van Gelder note in this essay, Ghana can benefit from this same growth, as can any developing society.

Mr. Tieku asked one of my panelists, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), what could be done to help Ghanian rightsholders engage in the international economy. Mr. Goodlatte, correctly, said that has to start with Ghana enforcing the rights of its creators and educating the public on the importance of respecting those rights. Of course, respect for the rights of Ghanian songwriters in markets other than Ghana is another of Mr. Tieku’s challenges. On his panel, he wished for more coordination of rights organizations, noting that the coordination has to come with rights organizations operating from legal enforcement of rights in their own countries.

Anyone who has attended the Midem conference in Cannes has seen this in action — the trade show floor is divided by flags, and you’ll find rightsholder organizations from, say, Iceland, negotiating with comparable organizations from, say, the Czech Republic. It’s a free market in the literal sense of a market, a bazaar. That works when you have countries with established rights organizations answerable to rightsholders, and a mutual respect for international treaty obligations.

It’s not fair that a songwriter in Iceland has more respect for their rights in other countries, and more avenues for compensation, than a songwriter from Ghana. But copyright is more than just fairness; as noted in a previous post from the IPI event, it is about incentives to create. Mr. Tieku is also introducing to the world a uniquely Ghanian genre of music called Hip Life, a blend of Highlife and Hip-Hop Ghanian style. We want Ghanians to continue to compose songs in this style, just as generations of Tennessee natives have shared their roots music with the world, and just like those Tennesseans, we want Ghanians’ rights to be understood and respected.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 26th, 2010 at 3:58 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under World IP Day, creators, culture, economy, events, international, licensing, piracy, property rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.