Ghanaian Producer Wins $250,000 Lawsuit Against CAF

Ghanaian music producer Kobby Spiky has won a landmark lawsuit against the Confederation of African Football (CAF), securing a $250,000 award for copyright infringement.

The ruling follows a two-year legal battle over the unauthorized use of Spiky’s music beat, “Okomfo Anokye,” by CAF for promotional purposes in 2022.

The court ordered CAF to remove the infringing materials and awarded damages equivalent to $250,000 in Ghanaian cedis. In an interview on GhOne TV on Thursday, Kobby Spiky expressed satisfaction with the judgment, emphasizing its significance for the creative industry.

“This win is not just for me, but it’s for the creative industry, for people to know that, hey, they can actually get something from their work,” Spiky said.

“We’ve seen a lot of creatives end up dying paupers or retiring without enough money because people haven’t really given them what they deserve.”

Spiky highlighted the importance of protecting intellectual property and ensuring that creators are fairly compensated. “If someone does steal our content, we can actually sue them. The law protects us. It’s our intellectual property, it’s our copyright, and we have the right to protect it and to be rewarded if somebody uses it,” he added.

Spiky recounted how he discovered the infringement through a friend and subsequently reached out to CAF, which acknowledged the use of his work but failed to compensate him. “I went to check it out and… they didn’t even change it a bit.

They just used the whole thing. So I reached out to them… Finally, they got back to me, they apologized and acknowledged that they had used it. And I said, ‘Hey, you have to remunerate me. You have to pay me for it. You have to compensate me.’ That was it. I didn’t hear from them again. So I had lawyers send them emails, letters, to basically put them into order, and it didn’t seem to be going as we expected it, so then we had to take the legal route,” he recounted.

Despite initial doubts about the effectiveness of the Ghanaian legal system, Spiky pursued the case with the support of his lawyer, Sara Noko Anku, who educated him on copyright and intellectual property rights.

Spiky also emphasized the need for greater appreciation and support for the creative industry in Ghana, urging stakeholders to recognize the value of creative works and ensure fair compensation for artists.

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