The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Tourism Authority, Akwasi Agyeman, has given an update on the agreement between government and musician Kirani Ayat, following their copyright infringement case in 2022.
Kirani Ayat had accused the government of using portions of his music video in a tourism promotional video without his consent.
The video which was posted on X by the President Nana Akufo-Addo, on Tuesday, September 27, 2022 on the occasion of World Tourism Day, featured scenes from the music video for Ayat’s single ‘Guda’.
When he finally met with the GTA and got compensated, the authority also promised that “moving forward, Ayat and GTA will collaborate on a number of projects aimed at showcasing Ghana, our beautiful landscapes, and exciting talents to the world.”
In an interview with Andy Dosty on Hitz FM, however, the CEO of the GTA, Akwasi Agyeman disclosed that even though the government was willing to work with the musician, he was not available for their intended project when they reached out to him.
“We reached an agreement and a settlement. And then in that agreement we said going forward we will work together. So this was somewhere in the middle of the year. So when we were doing our December programme, we reached out to him and his team, because he is from Navrongo.
We are even keen and eager to have programmes in other parts of the country apart from Accra, Cape Coast, Takoradi which is dominating the December in GH calendar. And he said they were not ready. Since then we have not actually heard from him. So we haven’t been able to go the whole nine yards with him,” he said on Daybreak Hitz.
Akwasi Agyeman further noted that the authority is still open to working with Kirani Ayat when he is ready.
“But we are still keen on working with him,” he said.
When Kirani Ayat launched the complaint about the copyright infringement case in 2022, he indicated that he had earlier reached out to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture to endorse his video to be used as a tourism promotional tool in the northern part of Ghana but he did not have any feedback.
After the issue was resolved, Kirani Ayat was tight-lipped on how much was paid to him as compensation. He however, corroborated the GTA’s statement that there had agreed to do tourism projects together.
Source: myjoyonline
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