Ghana Music Rights Organization (GHAMRO)

The Ghana Music Rights Organization (GHAMRO) was established under section 49 of the Copyright Law, Act 690 of 2005 and regulated under L.I. 1962 of 2010 to collect and distribute royalties on behalf of authors/composers and other right owners.

Like all other copyright societies, GHAMRO is a non-profit corporate body (limited by guarantee) and therefore all fees collected are distributed among the right owners whose works have been used, in this instance composers, authors and producers, publishers in proportion to the use made of their works.

GHAMRO is duly authorized by written assignments and affiliated to composers’ societies all over the world through the execution of reciprocal representation agreements with Societies outside Ghana whose works Ghana protect under treaty and other international treaties. In this way, GHAMRO authorizes all those societies to administer the music of Ghanaian composers and authors in their particular countries. Conversely, GHAMRO administers in the territory of Ghana, not only the music of its Ghanaians members, but also the great store of music in the repertoires of all those other societies – in other words, the music of over 1,000,000 composers, authors and producers in some 150 countries.

In this way GHAMRO renders an invaluable service to the users of music in Ghana. GHAMRO makes the music user’s task very simple, for a single and very moderate annual payment, GHAMRO issues a licence authorizing the licensee to use any music in the world-wide repertoire which it represents. Having made that single payment each year, the licensee is secured in the knowledge that GHAMRO holds him covered, and that he can perform in public any music in GHAMRO’s list without fear of being sued for infringement of copyright

GHAMRO was formed in December 2011. Before 2011, it existed as the Copyright Society of Ghana (COSGA) which was formed in 1986 and a general body creative products.

After just under three decades, the music arm of COSGA was handed over to GHAMRO, which instituted an interim board to administer its duties. Today the body is headed by the Ghanaian pop star Kojo Antwi who was elected in an election organized in 2015..