FREE DOWNLOADS STRIKE BUM NOTE

09-09-2007

Birmingham Council has struck a bum note in its efforts to promote local music, with claims that it offered free downloads on its official website without seeking permission from the bands involved.

As The Stirrer reported on Wednesday, tracks from the B1 CD - which was given away the previous night at a launch to celebrate the city's cultural credentials - were also due to be made available to music fans online (see here)

Yet our own webmaster Andy Goff reported on our Message Board that morning that he was only able to access one second snippets from each track.

Later that day, legendary local music promoter John Mostyn (The Beat, Fine Young Cannibals) weighed in with ferocious criticism of the entire project.

He castigated "the truly appalling graphics, the fact that the downloads on the BCC site are using some stone age system, [and] the fact that no one in the music industry in the City was consulted about the strategy".

Most damning of all was his claim that "in the contract with artists who appear on the CD no mention is made that individual tracks were to be offered as a free download".

This has now been confirmed to The Stirrer by David Kuczora, the manager of Stourbridge band Midas who've been frequently championed on this website.

He said: "We were told the promotional CD would be distributed to people coming to Birmingham, in delegate packs for the NEC and the ICC, as a way of getting people to hear bands from this area who wouldn't otherwise hear them.

"The first we knew about the plan to offer a download version was when we read about it, and we immediately alerted the Council. There had been no consultation and we hadn't given our permission."

Kuczora explained that Midas were quite happy to have their music streamed via the web, so that people could hear it - but were unwilling to give it away as a download in case it restricted the commercial potential.

He also revealed that plans to distribute the disc in next week's edition of the trade magazine Music Week hadn't been discussed with the band either - although in this case, he thought it was a good idea.

"The Music Week giveaway is an added bonus. I think if it's Birmingham City Council saying 'in our opinion these are our best up and coming bands' than that can only be a good thing."

The Council cock-up is a blow for Marketing Birmingham who gave the CD away as part of their "Feel The Heat" launch on Tuesday, but have now had their campaign overshadowed by this embarrassing row.

Tough questions are being asked of the local authority's "Canadian Queen of Spin" Debra Davis - the Director of Public Affairs - who is believed to have personally overseen the project.

Her involvement had already got backs up in the city's Leisure Department who felt she was encroaching on their territory; it's also curious that the downloads were made available through the Council's official website and not through www.birminghammusic.com which it funds.