April 2011
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Welcome to the April issue of our monthly public affairs bulletin, BASCA Briefing. A digest of current activities and BASCA policy, in each issue the Briefing will provide a short introduction to our active campaigns, and look at news issues from the music writers’ point of view.
IN THIS BRIEFING —
We hope you will find it useful; if you would like any further information, please telephone us on 0207 636 2929 or email nicola@basca.org.uk
No doubt you have read the extensive news about the recent cuts to Arts Council funding and grants. This month our Chairman Sarah Rodgers writes a passionate piece displaying how the lack of such funding will hit our community in a significant way. Meanwhile, we talk about Amazon’s recent ‘Cloud Service’ launch — they may well be latecomers to this market, but their tactics (that is, failing to officially license material) are no doubt going to ruffle feathers along the way. Finally, we update you with news of the Global Repertoire Database — one of the major steps the music industry is taking to make licensing easier and more transparent. We are very pleased to have a seat on the GRD workgroup where we can make the voices of songwriters and composers heard.
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COMMENT — Arts Council Cuts - The most unkind cut of all…
The assassination of Julius Caesar may seem remote from 21st century values in the UK, but the treachery of friend and supporter Brutus which was behind it, paints the Arts Council in a not dissimilar light. We have all braced ourselves for the pain and belt-tightening of Treasury cuts which are passed to departments and agencies and then in turn passed on to services, projects, and practitioners. We have trusted in the knowledge, experience and good judgement of the administrators and their advisory groups to sustain those organisations whose work is essential, or innovative, or has massive potential, or has the power to touch, influence and make a difference to people’s lives. We hoped that there would be a clear rationale, a minimum impact philosophy, and that organisations would all be resourced sufficiently to pull together and weather the funding storm, using reduced income judiciously, thereby preserving precious assets for the future and developing enterprising ways of being creative in an economic downturn. In BASCA’s view, this good sense has not prevailed. The Arts Council National portfolio of funded organisations announced at the end of March has a middle band of evenly pruned clients but its over-riding insignia is one of big winners and big losers — surely the trademark of an organisation which has been allowed to indulge its own eccentricities for far too long. In the current climate, to provide for big winners is as damaging as not to provide for big losers. For an organisation which talks ceaselessly about empowering, such emasculating behaviour is incredulous. This is not the place to provide a list, but attention must be drawn to one big loser. In 2005 a process was initiated by ACE to force a number of composer and contemporary music organisations — BMIC, SPNM, Contemporary Music Network and Sonic Arts Network — to amalgamate, on penalty of withdrawal of their grants were they not to comply. After three painful and creativity-sapping years, the new organisation — Sound & Music — was formed. Only three years later, a period during which the new organisation has worked to establish its identity and credentials, ACE is to reduce its contribution by 48%. In a landscape where agencies which support living composers are notably thin on the ground, that is treachery indeed.
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COMMENT — Head in the Clouds
The announcement by Amazon of the launch of their Cloud service (a player and ‘hard drive in the sky’) has provoked varying responses from the usual suspects amongst the music business chattering classes. Many of the comments that we have seen have taken a “so-what?” view of the launch. They cite the fact that the service offered by Amazon is neither new nor particularly compelling. However the most interesting part is that Amazon have made play of the fact that the new service is apparently unlicensed: and they go further by stating that they do not need a licence. The comments made by Amazon are reported as being directed at record companies but, insofar as BASCA is aware, the service has no licence for the use of the music being stored from PRS for Music. At one level, consumers may see this as no more than transferring their music, whether from CDs or downloaded files to their computers and to iPods, telephones and other mobile playing devices. It is unlikely that anyone, whether writer or artist, record company or publisher, would wish to see them prevented from doing this. However Amazon is launching this as a commercial service and will charge for extra storage capacity over a “free” limit. They will endeavour to make money from the use of music. In the majority of European jurisdictions they will doubtless argue that private copying is allowed because a levy is paid. That is not so in the UK and even if it were, BASCA questions whether the service that Amazon is providing should fall within the definition of “private copying”. We are sure that we will hear more about this.
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COMMENT — Global Repertoire Database (Take 2) In the February edition of the BASCA Briefing we talked in favour of the concept of a GRD as something that was self-evidently desirable. Since then it has been confirmed that the European Composer & Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) has been invited onto the working group for the European GRD. BASCA welcomes this participation and, as a committed member of ECSA is playing its part in helping to resource the commitment in terms of time that the workgroup requires from all it members. By opening up membership of the GRD Workgroup to ECSA, the ICMP and others, the existing members of the workgroup have taken a large step in the direction of dispelling some of the concerns that has arisen. These concerns arose from a “knowledge gap” as to what exactly the GRD being proposed by the Workgroup might entail. They were fanned by the suspicion of the result of conversations about such a potentially important development in how composers and songwriters rights would be managed taking place in a room without those composers and songwriters being present. BASCA is sure that the coming months will bring their own challenges for the embryonic GRD — but if they can be dealt with in an open way by all of the interested parties we believe that there is cause for optimism.
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For further information or to subscribe to this newsletter, please contact Nicola Slade at BASCA 020 7636 2929 nicola@basca.org.uk
BASCA, the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, is the professional association for all music writers in the UK; with over 2,000 members, it is the single voice for British music creators. |