The Department of Music and Dance of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), in the Central Region on Thursday, organised a workshop at the Amissah-Arthur Language Centre, University of Cape Coast on linking the arts to business and protecting creativity.
The workshop was attended by prominent lecturers and students including the Vice Dean, Reverend Professor Philip Arthur Gborsong, Prof. Isaac Amuah, Prof. Florian Carl, Dr Eric Otchere Debrah, Dr Mawuyram Adjohoe, Mr Kwodwo Adum-Attah, Dr Promise Nyatuame, Mr Benedict Sackey and UCC’s Graduate Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Coordinator, Mr Anku.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for PMA Ghana Limited, Mr Benjamin Oduro Arhin Jnr, took the participants through the various stages of creativity and how participants could learn to be creative to enable them to protect their creative works.
A part-time lecturer of the Institute of Distance and E-Learning, University of Education, Winneba, Mr Arhin said creativity was a deliberate effort that every one needed to harness with hard work, creative thinking and perseverance.
He simplified the intellectual property law registration process into three areas namely, international, regional and national where according to him, each registration had a different cost element.
However, he said unlike copyright ownership which is automatic, and its optional registration was limited to national; the other types of Intellectual Property such as Patents, Trademarks and Industrial designs could be registered at regional and at the international level.
On Intellectual Property, the PMA CEO expressed the need for the Ghana School of Law and other business schools in the country to establish music and film intellectual property and entertainment law courses to produce entertainment and intellectual property lawyers for the creative arts industry.
The workshop was chaired by Professor Florian Carl and the organisation team led by Dr Eric Debrah Otchere, the HOD of Music & Dance Department, supported by UCC Graduate SDG and DAAD.
He encouraged all participants to start practising good records keeping of their entertainment programmes expenditures, creative goods sells and purchase and to invest in low risk guaranteed returns investments so that at old age they would still have earnings.
FROM TIMES REPORTER, CAPE COAST
