Multichoice Ghana supports workshops for the entertainment and creative industries

Multichoice Ghana, once again will be supporting Dtalkshop as it hosts another edition of the Wetin Lawyers Dey Do… Sef? workshops for the entertainment and creative industries in Ghana.  Last year, Dtalkshop ventured outside Nigeria for the first time with its message of legal literacy and awareness when it hosted an edition of the Wetin Lawyers Dey Do… Sef? for the entertainment and creative industries in Accra, Ghana.

  With the support, once again, of the British Council, Ghana and Multichoice, Ghana, this year’s edition will be held in Kumasi and Accra on the 17^th and 19^th of July, respectively.  The theme this year, ‘Where is the money? – Funding and selling the creative product’, will cover discussions on identifying and protecting intellectual property (IP) rights; using IP as collateral; and exploiting the creative product.  The workshop will be preceded by a Lawyers’ Forum for counsel with an expressed desire to service the entertainment and creative industries.   Since the first of this edition of the Wetin Lawyers Dey Do… Sef? workshops was hosted in 2006, in addition to their concerns about piracy and protecting their intellectual property rights, participants have highlighted and identified several other challenges hampering the growth of the entertainment and creative industries including the fact that there is a wide gap between the financial institutions and practitioners, as financial institutions have little understanding of the industries, and, as expected, have been reluctant to play in the seemingly risky and uncertain terrain of the creative enterprise.   With the re-awakening of interest from financial institutions, Dtalkshop hopes that in addition to tackling issues concerning the trade of IP rights, this edition of the workshop will also provide a platform where interested financial institutions and practitioners can engage each other towards a better informed financing structure for creative products.  Amongst the confirmed financial institutions participating in the workshop is Merchant Bank Ghana whose representatives will speak about the Bank’s products and what it is doing in and for the entertainment and creative industries.  Resource persons include, Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Bar Association, Mr. Anthony Forson, and Mr. Efere Ozako, a legal practitioner from Nigeria.   Dtalkshop, with these workshops, aims to foster the development of viable structures that accommodate and encourage the participation of other professionals who are indispensable in growing the entertainment and creative industries, and generating sustainable revenues for practitioners.   Cecil Sunkwa – Mills, General Manager of Multichoice Ghana stated that “MultiChoice Africa, the continent’s leading satellite pay TV service, is committed to building a sustainable business in Africa as well as to investing in corporate social investment projects which contribute to the growth and development of the continent.  Our key focus is on education and the upliftment of the communities in which MultiChoice does business and that is why we see this seminar as a way to support a very essential initiative to our local content providers in particular and the industry as a whole”.      Please find below the program for the events that will be held at the British Council in Kumasi and Accra on the 17^th and 19^th of July 2012.      

Registration	09:00am – 09:55am
Introduction	10:00am – 10:15am
What is my ‘product’ and what rights are in it?	10:20am – 10:45am
Attracting funds as an entertainment and creative industries practitioner	10:50am – 11:15am
Various ways to exploit the product	11:20am – 11:45pm
Presentations by industry stakeholders and regulatory bodies	11:50pm – 12:50pm
Interactive Session	12:55pm – 1:30pm

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