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The Dual-Relationship Concept of Right-Ownership in Akan Musical Tradition: A Solution for the Individual and Communal Right-Ownership Conflicts in Music Production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2011

E. Kwadwo Odame Beeko
E. Kwadwo Odame Beeko
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh. Email: erb16@pitt.edu; ericobeeko@hotmail.com
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Abstract

There are apparently two legal systems of “rights ownership” in Ghana, which are (1) the individuals' rights—a system that overemphasizes the exclusive protection of the individual musicians' rights to ownership, and (2) the communal or governmental rights—a system that provides an exclusive protection of the government's (or community's) rights to ownership. Thus, for while the first are the inalienable rights that empower the autonomous musician universally, and are seen as a “private property” of mutually independent individuals; the second are the inalienable rights that empower the collective rights of the community/government, which are seen as a “public property” for a group, with cultural, communal or linguistic rights; systems that are contrary to the Akan systems of right ownership. My aim in this essay contest is to discuss the Akan “individual-communal” dual-relationship with respect to ownership that embraces these two seemingly unrelated concepts of “rights-ownership.”

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , August 2011 , pp. 337 - 364
Copyright
Copyright © International Cultural Property Society 2011

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