[Ecommerce] BBC backs down over Bach

[Manon Ress]

As pointed out by Florent Latrive on the French Escape list, the
story below shows that it is not about copyright since the works here
are in the public domain and the BBC owns the broadcasting's rights.
It's all about not upsetting sales.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/bbc/story/0,,1606160,00.html

BBC backs down over Bach

Julia Day, radio correspondent
Tuesday November 1, 2005


The BBC has backed down in a row with the music industry over free
classical downloads.

BBC Radio 3 will not offer complete classical music downloads for
free during its forthcoming 10-day Bach extravaganza following
complaints from the music industry after the surprise success of the
station's Beethoven downloads.

The corporation will not offer complete works over the internet
during its Bach Christmas special after the Beethoven symphonies were
downloaded 1.4m times in two weeks in June, upsetting classical music
record companies who feared the activity hit their sales.

The BBC has decided not to risk the ire of the industry again during
the 10 uninterrupted days of Bach running from December 16 to
Christmas Day, when thousands of people will be looking for music to
download on to their brand new Christmas present iPods.

Instead the BBC is considering offering only parts of Bach's music as
downloads, rather than whole works, but a decision has yet to be made
whether it will offer downloads at all.

The corporation has entered into talks with the music industry on the
million-dollar question of how to offer free music online without
adversely affecting music sales and is due to meet classical music
companies within the next week.

"We only envisaged the Beethoven downloads to be a trial to see what
the response would be," said a spokeswoman for Radio 3, who admitted
the massive take-up took the BBC by surprise.

"We are in communication with the BPI [British Phonographic Industry]
and record companies to assess and analyse what the response was and
we are still at that stage.

"Nothing will happen without consultation and, should it happen, it
will be nothing on the scale of Beethoven."

The spokeswoman said offering downloads was a "sensitive" issue both
inside and outside the BBC, and that "viable" solutions that work for
all parties have to be found.

A spokesman for the BPI said its members were upset the BBC gave away
Beethoven content for free without consulting the organisation, which
represents major and independent record labels.

"If the BBC has decided that free downloads will not form part of
Bach. It is encouraging that they are willing to take on board
comments made after Beethoven ... and they've given us the
opportunity to engage with them," he said.

The massive demand for Beethoven's complete symphonies on Radio'3's
website over two weeks in June would have sent the Viennese maestro
straight to No 1 in the pop charts were free downloads were eligible.

An equivalent commercial CD would take "upwards of five years" to
achieve the same kind of sales figures, according to record company
executives.

John Whittingdale, the chairman of the culture and media select
committee, accused the BBC of failing to consult the UK record
industry over the Beethoven downloads.

Classical music lovers from 26 countries all over the world flocked
to Radio 3's website to grab Beethoven's symphonies for free, with
the US accounting for 21% of the downloads with 17% being downloaded
by Brits while fans from as far as Vietnam and Mexico joined in.

Some record companies are not opposed to downloading per se and
believe that giving away snippets of music could encourage sales, Mr
Whittingdale added.

With the corporation planning to launch new digital and download
services, such as the forthcoming broadband TV service IMP, finding a
way forward on the music rights issue is crucial for the BBC.

Andy Parfitt, the controller of BBC Radio 1 told MediaGuardian this
week that resolving the issue was "key" to his station's development.

"We're absolutely sensitive to the people who invest a lot of money
in the music ... all of this technology in the end is absolutely
great for music because of the volume of music downloaded and
interest in music being re-energised. The key is for it to be
portable," he said.

Mr Parfitt believes one way forward may be to offer music on demand
that would expire after seven days, covering a week-long public
service window.
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************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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