#IPDayOnGMABC:We have the best laws to protect our creative properties but…- Socrate Safo

Chairman of the Classification Committee under the National Film Authority, Socrate Safo, has posited that the country has the best laws to protect creative properties.
However, poor leadership in collective societies has made it difficult for these creative properties to be protected.
According to him, many leaders of these collective societies are only in position for their selfish interest and not to protect the works of their members.
Giving an example to back his point, he shared with Happy FM’s Doctar Cann on the ‘Showbiz Xtra’ show that the Audio-Visual Rights Society of Ghana (ARSOG), a collective society that he was a founding member of, has not been able to implement the best laws protecting intellectual properties because of bad leadership.
“ARSOG has one of the best laws when it comes to copyright administration in Ghana.For example, ARSOG’s distribution format was adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
But our challenge is leadership. That is the whole problem. When it comes to leadership you need temperament, to be in leadership. If you dont have it, don’t go. A lot of people don’t have such qualities for leadership”, he said.
Socrate furthered that in a lot of decisions taken by board members, some members chicken out when it is time to implement these decisions and that keeps members of these societies poor even though they have works that could earn them so much.
Considering this phenomenon, he advised,”To lead a collective society, you need courage so if you don’t have that courageous spirit you dare not go”.
World Intellectual Property Day is observed annually on 26 April. The event was established by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2000 to “raise awareness of how patents, copyright, trademarks and designs impact on daily life” and “to celebrate creativity, and the contribution made by creators and innovators to the development of societies across the globe”.
By:Alberta Dorcas N D Armah