Thread: Music Piracy Controversy Surrounds Charity Fund Raising

The artists and musicians from Italy made a charity song to get money for victims of the recent earthquake. Similar action in Spain, where artists have performed to raise funds for a seriously ill boy. Both events, thanks to the involvement of music industry lobby groups, have been touched by copyright controversy.




In April hundreds of people were killed and tens of thousands left homeless after an earthquake hit L’Aquila in Italy. The ongoing effort to help those affected is huge and includes various fund-raising events. One of those is a collaboration of 56 artists and musicians who came together to record a song entitled “Domani 21/4.09″ (Tomorrow 21/4.09). Recorded over three days, the proceeds of the 6 minute song will go to helping the victims of the quake.


There can be little doubt, considering the already-massive effort underway to help those affected, that the song will sell as quickly as it can be put into stores and that the result will be that much-needed funds will reach those that need it most. However, elements of the Italian music industry simply couldn’t resist getting in a strike against P2P, when the opportunity arose to do so.

Domani 21/4.09, like any (every) other song, already made its way on to P2P networks and Italy’s answer to the RIAA has wasted no time in taking advantage. FIMI, the Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana, represents around 2,500 companies producing and distributing music in Italy and has been quick to condemn the leak, claiming that file-sharers are downloading the song while essentially trying to avoid giving money to charity, something which I find a little hard to believe.
People who want to give to charity and help a good cause, do so. Those that don’t want to give have made their choice too but of course there is clearly some propaganda value in claiming otherwise. We’ve all heard the untruth “one download equals one lost sale” but this is probably the first time I’ve heard “one download equals one less donation to charity”.

“There are thousands of copies of the song and video made available on P2P networks with tens of thousands of illegal downloads every day,” said the secretary general of Federation Against Music Piracy, Luca Vespignani. In an attempt at escalation, Vespignani says he has reported the situation to Italy’s Guardia di Finanza. “In this case, the damage goes beyond just music piracy, it is damaging a charity,” he said.

Meanwhile, moving west to Spain, aggressive copyright group Spanish
General Society of Authors and Editors has been up to its old tricks again and it clearly doesn’t mind ‘damaging a charity’. In December last year we reported how SGAE illegally gatecrashed a wedding in order to gather evidence that the event was avoiding copyright fees due to them. For their trouble, SGAE was fined around $82,000 but now the group has sunk to a new low.

Juanma López Fenoy is a very sick young man who suffers from a degenerative brain disease called Alexander Syndrome. In order to raise money so that Juanma can go to the US to receive treatment, a charity concert was organized, with artists waiving their fees to perform. The concert took place April 25 and raised €56,000 ($75,000) through ticket sales.
Of course, SGAE wanted their piece of the pie - a 10% piece to be exact - in order to cover their copyright fees. After complaints were made against SGAE, the group issued a statement saying that its actions were entirely consistent with copyright laws, which don’t allow anyone to get away with not paying the fees. However, when SGAE’s stance became known publicly, the opposition to their lack of compassion grew too loud for them to ignore.
SGAE issued a statement, saying that although it would still take its 10%, it would make an equivalent voluntary donation back to the fund, effectively canceling it out.
Better late than never, but if SGAE wanted to make a charitable donation it would’ve been in better taste to have done it willingly, rather than under pressure.
Details about making donations can be found here.

I thought all music was charity, just charity to the artist. Unless you want to tell me people write music just to get paid.

they write music to express their feelings, and to be able to survive off of the income they get by sharing their songs with other. sorry if that's confusing lol.
i think tho that music should be free; "Without music, life would not be fair." - Anonymous

Its a shame that people think there donating money to help out certain causes, and the people running the charities take there cut of the donations. It seems like a lot of people take advantage of others misfortunes to fill there own pockets. Not very cool.

Originally Posted by phm3991

I thought all music was charity, just charity to the artist. Unless you want to tell me people write music just to get paid.

Of course they want to get paid for doing something they are good at. Let me put it this way, if you were a builder would you build houses for nothing?
No of course you wouldn't, (unless it was a charitable one off) why should songwriters/ musicians be any different. They provide a service which you, the end user benifits from. If the recording industry didn't rip the musicians off then it wouldn't be a problem, plus the fact that most albums have maybe 2-3 great songs with the rest just space fillers that no-one would pay for.

But thats getting into another area.... I still download alot of music but I also buy alot too.

this is leaning towards more of a philosophical topic, but I believe the problem with the world ([and on point] your thinking) is everyone wants money to better themselves, they believe money will make them better and so aspire to getting as much of it as possible. That is what is stopping the human race from progressing, if we could cast off our silly delusion that green (or other colored) paper is worth something and all collaborate together we will evolve into something far greater than our current race.

just to add to the original post...

Pretty interesting...

Italy's piracy problem appears to have reached new depths with the news that the Guardia Di Finanza (Fiscal Police) have uncovered a P2P group that was illegally uploading the charity single "Domani 21/04/09."

The track was recorded by 50 leading artists, including Andrea Bocelli and Laura Pausini, to raise funds for victims of the recent earthquake in Abruzzo on April 6, in which 308 people lost their lives.

The Fiscal Police have identified three people in Milan and Rome who made the track available for free through DirectConnect and RapidShare, at the same time that the song became available though legal download stores. If found guilty, the three uploaders could theoretically face sentences of up to four years.

Raids were conducted in Milan and Rome in an operation that was code-named "Jackal." Hard disks containing more than 1,300 gigabytes of music files were seized.

Italy's anti-piracy organization FPM reckons that the illegal upload could have cost the earthquake charity up to €1 million ($1.4 million) in lost revenue.

"This was an important action by the Fiscal Police," said FPM's secretary-general Luca Vespignani in a statement. "'Domani 21/04/09' was released to raise funds for people who have gone through the shock of losing their homes and loved ones. We hope that fans who like the song will buy it through legitimate channels and help raise money for this worthwhile cause."

"Domani 21/04/09," released on the Sugar label, is still top of the country's legal singles download chart.

FPM estimate that P2P file-sharing in Italy costs the music industry in the region of €300 million ($422 million) annually.