The design firm that the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) disclosed provided them with material to use for their promotional movie has at last spoken up.
Samsal denied authorizing the Authority to use the Kirani Ayat movie in a news release. A mood board is a form of visual presentation or "collage" made up of pictures, text, and examples of various objects.
The company claims that the video reel they presented to the GTA just served as an illustration of the kind of content they want to create for the Authority in accordance with their agreement.
"For the avoidance of doubt, the video that the President and the GTA released is not the one we produced.
It has a few quotes from the mood board. The mood board and any scenes from it, however, were never published by us, Samsal said in a statement on Wednesday.
The agreement that was made between them and the Authority specifically states that the company creates new content using the mood board as inspiration and that the GTA will fund that content, they continued.
"Unfortunately, the GTA did not provide the agreed-upon funding for any new works. We produced a video on our own dime to support Discovery Bands and submitted it to GTA.
The Discovery Bands video, which also features gorgeous scenes from Ghana and was shot in collaboration with David Nicol-Sey, has not been posted by the GTA, and it has not complied with any of its content finance requirements under our MoU.
The business claimed that when they discovered that GTA had reused and disseminated material from the mood board, it surprised them.
The Black Star is making a call beneath the dark blue sky. Let the stars guide you as you travel with our people by following them. I cordially invite everyone to Ghana, the nation at the geographic centre of the planet. #VisitGhana2022 image via Twitter: 2m5KC2QTkt
– Nana Akufo-Addo, September 27, 2022, via Twitter
This follows the Ghana Tourism Authority's admission that the material for the now-viral tourism video was legally obtained.
The CEO, Akwasi Agyeman, disclosed that the agency that provided them with the movies was the design firm Samsal.
Speaking candidly about how the Authority obtained the footage, he said that Samsal contacted his organization for assistance in 2019 during the height of the Year of Return.
Mr. Agyeman alleged that the agency's representative showed him movies that they claimed to possess and were prepared to hand over to the authority in exchange for pushing the Ghana tourist agenda when he inquired about what the Authority would receive in return.
According to the GTA CEO, an MoU was struck and the footage was given over. Since their implementation in 2019, they have assisted the organization in promoting tourism, notably the "Visit Ghana, Eat Ghana, and Wear Ghana" campaign.
Samsal, however, is adamant that they did not grant GTA permission to use the video reel they provided, but the Authority persisted in doing so rather than carrying out its obligations under the Memorandum of Understanding by giving the company logistical and financial support for the creation of similar contents to market Ghana.
Therefore, it is false to state that our office gave the GTA permission to utilize Ayat's footage.The mood board was never a component of our delivery requirements under the MoU, and all parties were aware of this at all relevant times, according to Samsal.
We have contacted the GTA about the harm the ongoing narrative is bringing to our reputation as creatives, they continued. Our entire legal authority is reserved.
*The conflict over copyright's history*
The Tourism Ministry came under fire on Tuesday, September 27 from musician Kirani Ayat for exploiting parts of his material without permission in a recent promotional clip.
The president's voice-over in the video, which was posted on his Twitter page, encouraged travel and showed scenes from across the nation.
Shots from Kirani Ayat's 2018 single "Guda" music video, which was nominated for VGMA and 3Music Awards and featured scenes from the north, were also included in the video.
Kirani Ayat expressed his displeasure at having his work taken without his permission, noting that he gave the film his all without any assistance and was not paid after it was utilized.
The president of Ghana has used my video “GUDA” in this ad to promote Ghana. I was actively reaching out to the Ministry of Tourism in 2018/19 to use this video to push tourism in the North and got NO reply, yet today it’s in an ad and no one reached out to me for permission,” he wrote.
But reacting to the musician, the Ghana Tourism Authority, dismissed claims that some footage used for the new tourism promotional video which features President Akufo-Addo was pirated.
In a press statement, the Authority stated that they procured the footage Kirani Ayat is claiming ownership of legitimately from a creative agency in 2019 as part of a project.
The GTA stated that the agency delivered the content to the Authority, and the Authority used the content in accordance with the terms of the MOU.
They however added that despite their stance, they have reached out to the agency to deal with the issue after Kirani Ayat aired his concerns.
Kirani Ayat replied to the Ghana Tourism Authority stating that he has not given any agency the right to his intellectual property or given approval for any agency to use his content.
But Mr Agyeman is unhappy that Kirani Ayat called out the President and the Ministry of Tourism publicly on social media.
He stated that the ‘Guda’ hitmaker could have reached out to the Ghana Tourism Authority to get the issue sorted out when he recognised his content had been used.
