Every politician is a failed rock star
“Every politician is a failed rock star,” says Culture Secretary Andy Burnham MP, in a rather interesting feature article in the current (October 2008) edition of Q Magazine.
The article is about a cross-party group of MPs - calling themselves MP4 - who have a band. They are:
- Ian Cawsey- Bass & Vocals - Labour MP for Brigg & Goole
- Kevin Brennan - Guitar & Backing Vocals - Junior Education Minister, Labour MP for Cardiff West
- Greg Knight - Drums - Tory MP for East Yorkshire
- Pete Wishart- Keyboards - SNP MP for Perth & Perthshire North
Andy Burnam, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, apparently sometimes sits in on guitar.
They’ve produced an 4-song EP of cover versions, which is available on iTunes (for £1.99). Of course, I had to download it. Come on, 2 quid is cheap at the price. It’s actually not bad. They sound like a rather polished pub band. Okay, the production isn’t exactly George Martin, but for a novelty act, it’s actually very listenable. “My Old Friend The Blues” is the high-point, I think.
“Everyone in the House of Commons is a failed rock star, really. We start with football, find we can’t do that, try rock ‘n’ roll, and end up in politics,”Burnham tells Q.
MP4 have played the Albert Hall, but what caught my attention is the mentions of a more low-profile gig: they’ll be playing a benefit gig for the British Music Rights (BMR) organisation, with BMR’s chief executive Feargal Sharkey guesting on vocals. Apparently, Sharkey is lobbying, according to Q “to have songwriters compensated when forthcoming legislation makes it legal to copy your CDs onto your PC.”
Eh, what? You mean it’s currently illegal to rip your CDs to your PC? This is madness. No wonder a blind eye is turned when almost all audio software, including iTunes and Windows Media Player, have built-in features to do just that. How else do they expect one to load up one’s iPod or MP3 player? How else has all the hardware available from High Street shops - like the new Sony ‘Giga Juke’ reviewed in the same edition of Q- been sold legally in the UK if their main function - copying CDs to a PC - is illegal?
And what’s this talk of compensating songwriters when this stupid, unenforced, and unenforceable law changes? Compensated for what? If I buy a CD, rip it to MP3 so I can put it on my Pod, and stick it on the shelf, how does this hurt the songwriter? Just what would they be compensated for? Sure, if I copy allow the MP3s I’ve made to be loaded onto someone else’s PC or player, or upload them to a file-sharing site, that would be a different story. But that’s illegal anyway and should stay that way.
When I was a teenager (i.e. before CDs) I would buy vinyl LPs and treat them as a sort of ‘master copy’. I’d tape my records for casual listening and for use on my Walkman or in the car. Today I routinely rip all my LPs and CDs to a huge USB hard-drive. Is this against the law? Come on people, it’s one thing to go after freeloading downloaders, but to start gunning for people who actually buy their music with a demand they pay for it twice is insane.
It’s almost like the BMR has a deathwish.
And for us, the unfortunate music fans, it seems it may be better if the law continues to simply cast a blind eye in our direction rather than scrap a silly law by introducing and even more non-sensical compromise.
I hope our rock ‘n’ rolling MPs are listening.
Comments
| 4 September, 2008, 2:24 pm |
According to the bmr site they’re talking about a levy on the sale of consumer electronics that allow copying. It must be a good idea cos apparently every other country in europe already does it.
| 4 September, 2008, 4:12 pm |
“According to the bmr site they’re talking about a levy on the sale of consumer electronics that allow copying. “
But haven’t they always allowed copying? Home Taping isn’t exactly new. And why would Q - the leading UK music magazine - get it so wrong?
| 4 September, 2008, 6:13 pm |
I’m going to get a guest blogger to talk about EXACTLY why this sort of attempt to hold back the digital tide is stupid quite soon.
But sweet baby jeebers, I just looked at those MPs websites - never has the claim that “politics is showbusiness for ugly people” rung so true!
| 5 September, 2008, 12:13 am |
What morons and what a stupid idea.
I remember the days (what, scarily, almost 30 years ago) when records use to have that skull and crossbones symbol next to a image of a crossed-through cassette tape, by the slogan “HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC”
which, if that wasn’t an invitation to go out and tape some Phil Collins in the hope he would stop making it, was nothing
| 5 September, 2008, 9:41 am |
Pete Wishart isn’t a failed rock star: he played in Gaelic rockers Runrig. He’s gone from keyboard player in an inexplicably successful crap band to MP for an inexplicably popular crap party.
| 5 September, 2008, 9:51 am |
I can remember at various points there being moves to place levies on blank cassettes and blank CDs, although I don’t recall if they ever came to anything. This made some sense at the time, because the primary use for blank CDs and cassettes then would have been to make what were illegal copies, for personal use or otherwise. However, copying music to your PC is today synonymous with using a CD. Even simply playing a CD involves copying it so that the data can be decoded, but as we’ve moved towards a hard disc-based environment, the CD is, for many if not most people, literally a medium to transport your music from the shop to your PC, often copied once and never accessed again.
The problem is that the industry is struggling to make the psychological transition from music being a physical product in the form of a record or CD, to it being a bit of data that can and will be duplicated infinitely from even a single copy.
In a way, I don’t really blame them. I have no problem with artists and businesses making money from music, if law can strike a balance between providing an incentive for music to be made and marketed, and consumers and the public having fair use of that music. However, no one really knows where the revenue is going to come from at a time when the price of music is heading towards zero.
So, what’s happening, is that the music industry is lobbying for ever more draconian and unfair laws in order to replace lost revenues. This is understandable. What is not understandable is for government to implement daft legislation that, extends copyrights for decades after the deaths of the writers, or, like here, effectively taxes people for listening to the music that they’ve bought.
| 5 September, 2008, 9:55 am |
You can register your protest by clicking on my secret blog, which nobody apart from David T has visited yet.
| 5 September, 2008, 3:23 pm |
I can confirm that in France there is a “tax” on blank CD-Rs etc… and this is redistributed to the entertainment industry in proportion of actual sales. So e.g. new artists needing to make demos of their work essentially have to pay Johnny Halliday and Céline Dion for the privilege. I for one can’t think of a fairer system.
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