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Recording Industry Bans Musician From Charts For Supporting Free Music
from the fair-and-balanced dept
One of the favorite lines out of the recording industry honchos when confronted about musicians who are against industry efforts to sue individuals who share files is that the industry execs support whatever choice the musicians make for themselves. If the musicians want to free their music, the execs say, that's their choice. Funny, then, that the industry execs are acting out against a young musician who wants her music to be free. BPI, the UK version of the RIAA, has banned a twelve year-old singer songwriter from a new music chart they were creating for schools. The reason, apparently, is that BPI doesn't want to promote young Amy Thomas' music, since she's signed to a music label that doesn't support BPI's stance on suing file sharers. Obviously, BPI is free to set up its charts however it wants -- but it really should stop claiming to the world that it represents whatever artists want.
Reader Comments
(Flattened / Threaded)
amy thomas' music..
jeez.. it's nearly impossible to find Amy Thomas' website... "amy thomas" and "just smile" are way too generic to find.. but, I found it.. someone should build a site to search for websites and stuff, using keywords, that would be great.
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They promote the people that pay them
Doesn't the claim only mean that they represent whatever the artists that they represent want? Why should BPI promote a competitor's artist when others are paying them for promotion.
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HUH? Since when?
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so wrong on so many levels...
wow, obviously, BPI does it for money, but they don't can't even respect their artists decision..even when they claim they do....morals and ethics aside, it shows they can't think ahead to immediate media response..
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this is sad
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Streisand Effect
Streisand effect anyone? Because the BPI wants to be stupid, I'm now visiting the site of some artist I've never heard of before. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
So sure BPI, go ahead and ban the little girl. All you're really doing is giving her free publicity.
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Another label, another label, another label...
I am pretty sure I read that "the industry" claims to support ITS artists. I can only infer that the author intended "the industry" to represent BPI. In any case, she is apparently signed under an unsupported label. BPI is a company, so why would they promote someone who offers them no return. People need to quit crying about big companies being whores or sell-outs. That is what they do. A busuniess who promotes everyone, reguardless of affiliation is doomed. They are simply following good business practice. Why so much fuss about the charts anyhow?? Does anyone even look at them outside of the industry?
TAKE AWAY THE CAPS LOCK KEY AND PEOPLE WILL STILL DO THIS - another story, but I just had to mention it.
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Re: Another label, another label, another label...
Why then have charts?
Charts shouldn't be a commodity for those companies, they should show what's popular and what's not.
Not what label under BPI care has the 'best' music.
If they can't be arsed to include other labels on that list, then that list is phony and has no real value to add... Because it fails to show what's really, actually popular and what's not.
Just my 2 cents.
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Re: Re: Another label, another label, another labe
What's the point of charts which only include BPI-affiliates? Well, not much, really, but that's the way it's always worked, so far as I'm aware. Charts are commercial commodities, used for marketing. With respect, it's a little naive to think they're truly independent and objective.
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But if...
the BPI only includes the artists under their labels can you really say that their charts are accurate?
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O_o
People still pay attention to charts? I thought that was an 80's thing with that Casy Kasem fella...
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BPI is an acronym
...for Bite my Pissing Instrument!
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Things are not as they seem, eh?
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33755
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Re:
Things are not as they seem, eh?
Actually, reading through that article, they still seem very much the same. The only difference is that the girl was rejected before she could possibly be on the chart. As BPI admits in the article, they refused her application (which seems like a ban to me) based on the views of the label she signed with. That's more or less what the original story said.
The only difference is that she banned before she even had a chance to be on the list, not after she was supposed to be on it.
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Wow, big surprise
Just confirms what we already new, the BPI are backwards thinking dinosaurs, who don't care about consumers or artists.
There's no problem having a company that wants to make money - it's the basis of a capitalist society. However a company that attempts to prevent people from actually using the product they purchase in a reasonable way and attempting to change copyright laws so that no one can have fun or be creative with the things they own just plain sucks. So I'll just carry o using iTunes until they fix it so Jhymn won't strip the DRM anymore and then'll have to find some place else.
I guess we're just lucky the're not quite as bad as the RIAA.
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Reply to those saying
This doesn't address Mike's point, which acknoledges the the BPI have the freedom and the right to do this; this entry is about hypocracy; the industry claim to support musicians' own choices, but don't in practice. Vis:
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I Plugged this
I agree with you guys, and I plugged this article on THE PLUGG go vote.
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Re: I Plugged this
Wow....could that site be any more of a Digg rip off?
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How she can get to the top of the charts
These charts are worthless - it might as well be a Readers Digest CD of the month club if all they are going to allow in is 'labels we approve of'. We might as well all do the same thing: my chart counts world-wide sales of records by kids called Amy Thomas, and this week's number one is... Amy Thomas! She also becomes the top seller of the year, decade and century. Meaningless charts, but publicity for Amy so at least she gets her opportunity for fame (if she's any good - haven't listened!)
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BPI is irlelvant
This just proves that the BPI is entirely unrepresentative of the real music industry in the UK - they simply have no idea. As Sean said, this is an own goal, because they are giving Amy free publicity and kudos.
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National corporate curriculum
I think a more important question would be why a government department (DFES) and schools are promoting the music industry in this way. Why is there a list of 10 tracks at all? Why no local bands? Why recorded and not live music?
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media spin all around
This sounds as much like Flowerburger records trying to help sales of their albums and artists by making themselves out as the poor little underdog company as it does the mean old BPI keeping smaller artists down.
Flowerburger found the perfect spokesmodel for their cause in a 12 year old girl and are now working as hard as they can to get the press to make this into a fight between a young artist trying to make it and the big corporation keeping her down. I don't see a single quote from the girl saying that she is for p2p filesharing. Obviously no-one is looking to see if she chose fowerburger for it's ideology, or if they were the only one to offer her a contract. I feel sorry for the girl because she is going to get caught up in this fight and media in a way that she probably never intended.
I call bullshit on this whole thing. It all sounds fabricated for an agenda to me. Personally, I don't care if I agree with someone or not, but when they start manipulating the truth for their own agenda I tend to stop trusting them.
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This is an abomination.
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BPI deny the accusation
"We didn't decide to ban the artist - not only is it untrue that we made a decision to ban her from the campaign - she was never in the running in the first place. We don't know what her views are on downloading, and even if we did, we don't condone censorship. Since we did not ban her, it's untrue to suggest we did so on the basis of her personal views."
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/08/17/uk_music_industry_bl.html
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Re: BPI deny the accusation
Read the details of the denial (which I posted further up this thread). The only part they deny is that they banned her specifically. They admit that they rejected her *application* based on her label. So, they didn't pull her off the chart, they just didn't let her even enter the competition. So, no they didn't ban her based on her "personal views," but they banned her based on her label's views.
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Amy was put forward by Pinacle (one of the major distributors) for their one slot in the My Music top ten given to them by the BPI. All was going well Amy's school was told, she was getting her single done and other tracks that she wrote. Then the BPI banned her on the basis of Flowerburgers views when they found out she was on the Flowerburger label.
Flowerburger supports the proper payment of musicians but not by suing fans to scare them into buying . Flowerburger supports a levy like was done for radio that will give income to struggeling musicians as well as the famous ones. On the Flowerburger web site there is a petion against suing that has now been signed by thousands.The public will benefit and entertainment will flourish even more.
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Amazing...
It still amazes me how the recording industry can be so detached from their core customer, then complain about a slump in music sales... GET A CLUE!!!
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amy thomas
It seems to me that this schools top ten was a closed shop, there was no real competition and the BPI just controlled it. The BPI can really say what they want then...Amy has showed their true colors!!
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Wasn't this schools top ten just the majors and the retailers trying to get to the school kids, or their parents, to part with more money. The education thing was ballshit. Kids get plenty of music education as it is.
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HATE
DAT U DID NOT HELP ME AT ALL
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