Veteran music producer Zapp Mallet has said that when he was a Board Member of the Ghana Music Rights Organisation (GHAMRO) an attempt to institute a split sheet system proved futile.
He said about six years ago the organisation planned on introducing the system which would indicate how much contributors on a music project would earn from royalties.
Talking about the poor royalty system in Ghana on Joy FM’s ‘Showbiz A-Z’, he said there were many things they did not do right to place the industry in a better place.
“I was on the GHAMRO Board for two years and we tried instituting the split sheet from the office with Abraham Adjatey, the CEO. But that thing was shot down. I don’t know why. We shot it down,” he told the host Kwame Dadzie.
According to him, after meetings with some stakeholders, the plan failed to see the light of day.
“We asked the Accra Producers and Engineers to meet us at GHAMRO, they didn’t show up. Just about five of them showed up,” he said.
He said when they went to Kumasi, the producers were more enthusiastic about it but when they returned to Accra they failed to make the move to make it work.
A split sheet is a written agreement that identifies all contributors to a song as well as their ownership percentages of that song. These ownership percentages determine how publishing royalties will be “split” between creators. When all parties sign, split sheets become legally binding.
At a press conference on August 31, 2021, the Chief Executive Officer of GHAMRO, Abraham Adjatey, after announcing the Collective Management Organisation’s partnership with CAPASSO and Global Music Monitoring to track airplay of musicians’ songs , also announced the introduction of the split sheet system.
He was emphatic on the need for musicians to sign split sheets of contributors to their works.
He said that provides metadata on who should receive payment of royalties on a particular musical work.
In tandem with that, he said GHAMRO will provide copies of the split sheets to the recording studios, so musicians commit to making sure they enter the right details.
He, therefore, urged lyricists, composers, arrangers, publishers to sign their right with GHAMRO to enjoy the benefits that come with it.
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