Collective Management

Collective Management

Collective management is a specialized area in copyright. Collective management deals with the management of the rights of rightholders on their behalf by private entities. It involves the collection of royalties from sources where copyright works are predominantly used for commercial purposes and distributing the royalties to rightsholders. Because it is practically impossible for rightsholders themselves to collect their royalties from these sources such as radio and TV stations, restaurants, drinking bars, hotels, spinners, institutions of higher learning (universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, etc) among others, rightsholders assign their rights to private entities that are legally mandated to collect royalties on their behalf and distribute same to the rightsholders.

There are currently three (3) collective management organizations (CMOs) in Ghana namely:

• Ghana Music Rights Organization (GHAMRO), which manages the rights of music rightsholders.
• Audiovisual Rights Society of Ghana (ARSOG), which manages the rights of audiovisual rightsholders.
• CopyGhana (Reprographic Rights Organization) which manages the rights of literary rightsholders.

Copyright owners are therefore advised to associate themselves with any of the aforementioned CMOs depending on their field of industry.