Former Public Relations Officer of the Film Producers Association of Ghana (FIPAG), Michael Ola, has threatened severe actions against certain persons who have begun uploading and streaming Ghanaian movies free of charge on social media platform, Facebook.
Speaking with to Showbiz last Friday, Michael Ola condemned the action of the streamers, one of whom has uploaded over 40 Ghanaian movies on his social media pages and streams them to thousands of followers online.
According to Michael Ola, he has taken steps to report the users to Facebook for copyright violation and though a few of these pages have been blocked by Facebook, the page of the alleged biggest offender who goes by the name, Daakyehene Nana Osei, was still active.
“When this news first came to my notice, I reported the pages of some of these streamers to Facebook and they were blocked.
However, the most prolific one belonging to Daakyehene was only blocked for a couple of days and it’s back online with even more followers,” he said.
Michael Ola questioned why Facebook revived the page when the owner of the page was blatantly violating the copyright of many movie producers in this country.
“I have no idea why the page came back online. That’s because I once used an artiste’s song for an advert and Facebook took down the advert and asked me to provide proof that I had permission from the artiste to use the song. Why then is this guy’s page online when he obviously does not own the movies?” he asked.
Michael Ola said he had reported the matter to the Ghana Police Service but they have expressed their inability to take action since the offender lives outside the country.
“I am monitoring the situation closely and arranging for the arrest of this guy the moment he sets foot in this country. He cannot be allowed to deprive movie producers of their hard-earned money simply to gain followers on Facebook.
As it stands, videos on Facebook do not earn any revenue so what this guy is doing is simply depriving film producers of income just to gain followers for his page,” he said
Showbiz checks revealed that several Ghanaian movies, both old and new, including titles like Ebe Sesa and Double Trouble, are on Daakyehene’s Facebook timeline.