The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Music Rights Organisation (GHAMRO), Jackson Brefo, says churches must pay royalties for songs they use during church services.
The CEO said on Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z that churches are considered active users of music and therefore cannot be exempted from paying royalties to GHAMRO.
“The law is not biased toward any entity. It does not mention churches, but it states that anyone who intends to use the work of an author or causes the work of an author to be performed in public must comply. There is a portion for fair use that covers educational purposes, but the law never mentions churches,” he said.
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Explaining how GHAMRO secures royalties from churches, Jackson Brefo noted that while some orthodox congregations adhere to the rules and pay, many charismatic and Pentecostal churches remain resistant.
“Some of the orthodox churches are compliant. The difficulty we face is with the emerging charismatic and Pentecostal churches. With the orthodox churches, we are making progressthe Church of Pentecost, Assemblies of God, and Methodist are all compliant,” he said.
Jackson Brefo emphasized that encouraging churches to pay royalties would strengthen the revenue pool for gospel music and increase earnings for gospel artistes in Ghana.
The debate over churches paying royalties for the use of gospel music first surfaced in 2017, when then‑Chairman Rex Omar disclosed that GHAMRO had systems in place to collect royalties from churches “because they also use musicians’ intellectual property.”
The issue resurfaced in March 2020, when Omar argued that churches should be licensed and billed for copyrighted music used during services.
He cited Section 37(2) of the Copyright Act, 2005 (Act 690), which provides that “an owner of copyright is entitled to collect royalties for the live performance of the copyright work or for the public performance of the recorded copyright work.”