Copyright Protection – Part 8 of AudreyGrey’s IP Series
Introduction
We started this series talking about breaking down those “Copyright things”. Finally, we have gotten round to it. Copyright is arguably the most famous IP, and for good reason; it comes at zero upfront cost, instant automatic worldwide protection, and universal global enforcement options. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start from the beginning.
What is Copyright?
Copyright describes the rights that creators have over their literary and artistic works. It covers books,articles (like this one) and other write ups; music and other sound recordings; paintings, graphic designs, sculptures and other types of art; photos; movies and other videos; computer programs, databases,advertisements, maps, architectural sketches and technical drawings, and choreography. Creations that are derived from these are also protected by copyright.
What does Copyright Protect?
It is important to understand that copyright protects the expression of an idea, but not the idea or concept itself. That is why you can have two movies, ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ and ‘White House Down’, released in the same year (2013) by different production houses with very similar plots about how one security personnel foils an attempt to infiltrate the White House and rescues the president. And both will receive copyright protection for the actual movie, the scripts, the videography, and all that, but not the concept of an invasion of the White House.
To qualify for Copyright protection, the creation must meet two simple tests: (1) it must be original, and (2) it must be captured in a fixed medium.
Original: Sadly, original does not mean artistically brilliant. It doesn’t even mean new or original in the traditional sense. It just means that the work was created through the independent effort of the author or co-authors and not simply be copied from another source.
Fixed medium: Your idea must be expressed in a form that can be revisited. This raises an immediate question, what about if I express my idea orally? If you record that sound or have it transcribed, it can have copyright protection. Otherwise, it will be difficult to protect. There is another IP right – Performing Rights – which protects live performances for singers, spoken word artists and other performers. We will discuss that in our next installment (Part 8(2)).
For the protection in Ghana specifically, the work must have some sort of connection with Ghana. That connection be established in four ways
The author must either be a Ghanaian citizen, a person ordinarily resident in Ghana; or
The work should have first been published in Ghana.
For work originally published outside Ghana, it should be published in Ghana within 30 days from the original date of publication;
The work is protected under an international treaty that places an obligation of protection on Ghana. (This last part ensures that any work that has global international protection under the Berne Convention2 or the TRIPS Agreement3 is also protected in Ghana).
The protection also prevents others from reproducing, modifying, translating, or distributing the author’s work without permission.
What is excluded?
Copyright protection also does not extend to ideas, concepts, procedures, methods, systems, or discoveries.
The Dual Nature of the Rights: Getting Paid vs. Getting Respect
Every copyrighted work comes with two main categories of rights granted to authors: The right to get paid from the work (economic rights) and the right of attribution (moral rights).
Economic rights enable the author to commercially exploit their work. This means the author decides who can reproduce, translate, adapt, arrange or transform their work. The author also determines if it can be performed publicly, broadcasted, communicated to others, distributed, sold, rented, or licensed and the terms for those arrangements. The author is entitled to the proceeds or royalties from those transactions. The downside is that once an original is sold outright, the author gives up further economic rights in it.
Moral rights protect the honor and reputation of authors rather than their financial interests. So even after you have sold your work, everyone who uses that work must still acknowledge you as the author, even if you use a pseudonym. This is the right at play when Instagram takes your videos down because you used music or an audio without crediting the artist. Moral rights also extent to protection against distortion, mutilation or modification of copyrighted work.
It is important to note that in Ghana, a sale/transfer of economic rights does not automatically transfer the moral rights as well. Moral rights are deemed to remain with the author until they expressly transfer that right. That is, unless it is an employment relationship or commissioned work. The Section 7 of Copyright Act, 2005 (Act 690) states that the economic right of a work vests in an employer or person who commissions the work where the employed or commissioned author has created the work in the course of the employment or commission by default, unless there is a contract that says otherwise. It is
silent on what happens to the moral rights. Under the “Works for hire” doctrine, some commentators argue that the creator of commissioned work also loses their moral rights. The argument is that in a work for hire, the one who commissioned the work is the author.
Registration
The great thing about copyright is that it does not need to be registered to be protected. The protection is automatic globally with minor variations across states. However, without registration, it is difficult to prove ownership or authorship in the event of a dispute.
In Ghana, Copyright Registration is done at the Copyright Office by filling the prescribed forms and paying the prescribed fee. Registration can be done by the author, their agent, a producer, publisher, or person with an interest (right) in the work. During registration, you are required to leave two copies of your work. That provides concrete evidence of authorship. Photographs or illustrations of a work are permitted where supplying actual copies will impose undue hardship on the rights owner.
Registration is especially important for sound recordings and other audiovisual work because as part of the registration process, because you have to register the anti-piracy security devices used to protect your work. And that security device/ feature is used to monitor and flag any unauthorized use or distribution of the work.
Duration of Protection
Moral right protection lasts forever, but the protection for economic rights does not. The author enjoys exclusive economic rights for a limited period, after which the work falls within the public domain and may be used freely. The duration depends on the type of work and the identity of the rights holder. See table 1
| Type of Work / Owner | Duration |
| Individual Authors | Life of the author + 70 years. |
| Joint Authors | Life of the last surviving author + 70 years |
| Corporate Bodies | 70 years from the date the work was made or first published, whichever is later. |
| Anonymous Work/ Work published under a pseudonym | 70 years from date of publication. |
| Sound Recordings & Everything else | 70 years from the date of publication. |
Table 1
Boundaries of Copyright Protection
Although Copyright grants exclusive rights, the law recognizes certain situations where works may be used without prior authorization. Some of them may surprise you:
- Fair use:
Copyrighted work can be used for study, for teaching, private research, or other scholarly work, without the permission of the author. Flowing from that, a not-for-profit library or archive can make a single reprographic copy of the work upon the request of an individual who needs it for the restricted purpose of personal study or research or to replace a lost or damaged copy. This includes, photocopying,scanning or enlarging the work. If they need to make more than one copy, they need the permission of the author. And this is what led to the UPSA dispute with CopyGhana.
Additionally, once copyrighted work is publicly available, it can be reproduced, translated, adapted, arranged or transformed for an individual’s exclusive personal use without the owner’s permission. When literary work is quoted, it must be cited properly. Short excerpts of literary work can be quoted commercially if cited properly.
- Public benefit works:
When a work that has copyright protection is reproduced or broadcast as part of news or for public education, it is not considered an infringement, even though the news station makes money of selling the news. The counterbalance should have been that news does not have copyright protection either. Unfortunately, private media outlets can still claim rights over their reportage.
Laws, judgements, reports of commissions of inquiry or other government agencies published by the government, cannot have copyright protection. The President of Ghana is the trustee for such works.
- Reproduction and adaptation of computer programs:
A purchaser of a computer program can make a copy or adapt the software for their archives, to replace a lost, destroyed or crashed one. They can also make a copy for their personal use if it falls within the permissible use for the original copy. Once again, it can be only one copy.
- Work in the public domain
At the expiration of the term of protection, copyrighted work falls into the public domain. Once work falls into the public domain, it can be used, reproduced, adapted, translated, arranged or transformed by anyone without the permission of the author.
Infringement, Enforcement & Remedies
Selling, reproducing, renting, manufacturing, duplicating, extracting, imitating, altering, importing, exporting, broadcasting, distributing, or exhibiting copyrighted work without authorisation is an infringement of copyright in Ghana. Removing the electronic right management information on copyrighted work is also an infringement. The same goes for circumventing the technological protection given to that work.
You can go to jail for up to three years for copyright infringement. You could also be slapped with a fine of up to GHS12,000.00 per day for each day the infringement continues. The author also has the right to seek an injunction to prevent an imminent breach or to quell a continuing one. The owner is further entitled to compensation by way of damages or an account of profits made from the unauthorised exploitation of their work.
Conclusion
Copyright is a critical consideration for all businesses, especially those in the creative or information technology industries, even if they may not immediately realize it. In the course of normal operations,most businesses create software, advertisements, manuals, reports, databases, training materials, websites, designs and other creative content that falls squarely within the contemplation of copyright. The creative work produced forms part of the business’s intellectual assets. Like any other asset, it can be exploited to generate revenue through licensing or sale. How these transfer arrangements are structured determine whether the IP becomes an asset to the company or a lesson to future generation on what not to do.
This article explained Copyright in general terms. In the coming weeks, we will tackle the real-world battlegrounds: sampled beats, AI art trends, software licensing, client photo rights, educational fair use and plagiarism, and what happens when internet culture tests the limits of copyright. See you on the next one.
[1] Copyright Act, 2005, Act 690, sec. 2
[2] Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (signed 9 September 1886, entered into force 5 December 1887) 828 UNTS 221
[3] Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) (opened for signature 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1869 UNTS 299.
[4] Copyright Regulations, 2010, LI 1962, sec. 1
[5] Act 690, sec. 19
[6] CopyGhana, High Court rules against UPSA for copyright infringement: A wake-up call for educational institutions – CopyGhana, assessed 24th June 2026.
Authors: Audrey Naa Dei Kotey, Clara Mettle-Nunoo & Lordina Abena Oduma Atingane
