Musicians Receive Royalties From Youtube

Accra-based multi-media production outfit, Ohene Media (OM) through its YouTube channel fiestaGH , has paid royalties to over 30 Ghanaian musicians. The payment, the second in a series, was money that accrued to the musicians from YouTube over the last three months. YouTube is a video-sharing website created in February 2005 and managed by Google since late 2006, on which users can upload, view and share videos. The beneficiary musicians included Daddy Lumba, Ernest Opoku, Chupa Chops, Appiah, Atumpan, Obaa Pa Christy, Brother Philip, Kodi And Aj, Keche, Ruff N Smooth, Sonnie Badu, Becca and OJ. The others were Cecilia Marfo, Cindy Thompson, Stay J, Samini, Stonebwoy, Castro, R2bees, Okyeame Kwame, Guru, Sherifa Gunu, Kaakie, Elder Mireku, Vine Praise, 4x4, Praye, Bisa and Diana Antwi Haamilton. Six other music-related outfits: Official Sarkodie, Official El, Gh Kings, Eazzyfirstlady, Xtralarge, and One Mic have also received money for their content on YouTube. Explaining the process in Accra recently, the Chief Executive Officer of Ohene Media, Abraham Ohene Djan, said his outfit last year signed a contract with Google under the Google Premium YouTube Partnership to help create value for Ghanaian content on YouTube. Subsequently, OM was given a platform on YouTube to upload videos from Ghana with the idea of attracting adverts which would in turn generate revenue for the artistes or owners of the content. OM was also given a platform to create channels for individuals so they can also monetise and attract adverts. He explained that contrary to what most people perceived, much revenue was not generated through the frequency of view but rather through the number of times people clicked on adverts when a particular video was showing. Mr Ohene Djan said his outfit was ready to assist any individual, not only musicians, who had content worth uploading on YouTube.