Ghanaian police pounce on pirates

BERNARD BOSOMPRAH, Copyright Administrator, today led a gang of heavily armed police to arrest 22 pirates in the Ghanaian capital, Accra.

The Copyright Office said its officers seized hundreds of pirated video tapes, compact discs (CDs) and, um, music cassettes in the raids.

Some of the pirates tried to flee when the copyright cops arrived at 10am, Graphic Ghana reports. Others tried to fend them off, claiming the operation was a waste of time and claiming it should be the job of the musicians and actors themselves to go catch the copiers, not the administrator.

"You know the right things but you only refuse to do them," Bosomprah told the criminals.

A spokesman said the 22 arrested men would be in court within two days.

President of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), Alhaji Sidiku Buari, said the pirates were putting musicians out of work. "They have sleepless nights to compose music or act, only for some unscrupulous persons to make money at their expense", he said.

Police filled six vans full of boxes of pirated products, including pornographic videos reportedly acted out in Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire, the newspaper reported.

Bosomprah said the pirates were costing the state "billions" of cedis in tax.

"We will continue to take them by surprise and those who we are able to arrest will be put before court," he said. µ

L'INQ
www.graphicghana.info