The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) has released a statement confirming that indeed, the GTA under the Akufo-Addo government administration pirated the song ‘Guda’ by Ghanaian artiste Kirani Ayat and illegally used it for the national tourism project
The GTA dubiously claimed it was misled. Yet, it erased the sound of the music video and superimposed President Akufo-Addo’s voice on it to falsely give an impression of originality.
In a statement released and signed by the GTA’s CEO, Akwasi Agyeman, it claimed that the song had been handed to the government by creative agency, Samsal as far back as 2019, to use for tourism promotion.
In a press statement, the Authority stated that they procured the footage Kirani Ayat is claiming ownership of legitimately from a creative agency in 2019 as part of a project.
According to the GTA, the agency delivered the content to the Authority, and the Authority used the content in accordance with the terms of an MOU that had been signed between the parties.
They however added that despite their stance, they have reached out to the agency to deal with the issue after Kirani Ayat aired his concerns.
However, Kirani Ayat replied to the Ghana Tourism Authority stating that he has not given any agency the right to his intellectual property or given approval for any agency to use his content.
“As an independent artist and SOLE owner of the video used in the “visit Ghana” ad campaign, I have NO agreement with any government or private entity to use my intellectual property,” he noted.
Ayat has revealed that he had sent the video to the tourism authorities seeking them to sponsor it as a masterpiece to sell Ghana’s tourism, but they had ignored him. Yet, they sneakily used his content, altered it and used it for tourism promotion anyway, without consulting him.
Earlier, President Akufo-Addo had spearheaded the piracy offense by posting the video of Kirani’s ‘Guda’ song along with promotional text on his Twitter handle.
“Beneath the deep blue sky, the Black Star is calling. Follow the stars and let them take you on a journey of our people. I invite everyone to the country at the centre of the world,” Akufo-Addo wrote.
To this, Kirani replied, “The president of Ghana has used my video “GUDA” in this ad to promote Ghana. I was actively reaching out to the Ministry of Tourism in 2018/19 to use this video to push tourism in the North and got NO reply, yet today it’s in an ad and no one reached out to me for permission.”
Source: Whatsupnewsghana