machine-envy

Yesterday, Murdoch snoozpaper The Times hinted at the wonderful news that The British Library may inherit the record collection of the late, great John Peel. According to the article “it would be the largest and most significant collection deposited with the national Sound Archive at the British Library”. This 2000 article from the Guardian gives us a glimpse of what treasures lie in wait.

However, the warm glow initiated by this news was quickly chilled when I read this hunk of junk, which, in the print edition appeared RIGHT NEXT TO the Peel revelation. So, “[Sir] Cliff challenges rock’n'roll swindle”? Well done mate, looks like you’ve just undone all the good and then some for the archiving of obscure musical treasures of the past.

Now, I have never written a letter to a newspaper in my life. I have to say I prefer getting paid for writing in newspapers. But, since the likelihood of me ever wanting to write for The Times is about the same as John Peel wanting to shake Sir Cliff’s hand when the latter finally decides to enter the pearly gates, well then reader, I wrote. And here’s what I wrote *just in case* the editors of the Times decide not to print it

To Mr Adam Sherwin

I write in response to your article in the November 1 issue of The Times “Cliff challenges EU rock’n'roll ’swindle’”

Sir Cliff Richard, though no doubt admirable in his desire to lead “a fight for music’s unsung heroes” should understand that he is achieving quite the opposite through his lobbying of the EU to extend the terms of copyright on sound recordings beyond 50 years. For it is those creators of music in the 60s that is no longer commercially viable today who will really lose out should the copyright term be extended.

Because as well as lusty pornographers, who are no doubt itching to use Sir Cliff’s happy ditties to soundtrack their nefarious visuals, there is a community of online music enthusiasts who lust after the not so well-sung musical heroes of the sixties. Once it is released into the public domain, this community will be free to distribute fringe music to a whole new generation of fans. Okay, the composers of the music will get no (immediate) financial compensation - but they wouldn’t anyway. And what they will get is new recognition for their work, recognition that has been denied to them ever since their record companies decided they were no longer commercially viable, and stopped releasing their music.

Because for every song that record companies treasure for ongoing back-catalogue profits, there are hundreds if not thousands of recordings that have been languishing on record company shelves for decades, with nobody to hear them. Should the EU choose to heed Sir Cliff, keeping his work out of the public domain for a further 45 years or even more, he will drag down with him this huge body of commercially worthless but culturally significant work. It is this body of work that “those who believe that music should be ‘free’” are truly worried about - and it is the emancipation of this music, not the financial cost, with which they are concerned.

Yours sincerely

Becky Hogge, Writer and Researcher, London E9