Chartered Territories

Barry Devlin is the one chosen to read The Artists’ Charter aloud. It is the first session on the first day of The Music Show 2012 and the Horslips frontman takes us point by point through the historic one-page document which sets out the rights of artists to be paid for their work in stark and occasionally dramatic terms.

The strength of The Artists’ Charter lies in its simplicity. It aims to make it absolutely clear why online piracy is morally wrong, who it hurts – and who is to blame. “We have the right to earn a living from our work,” it begins succinctly.
A round of applause is offered as Devlin reads the next nine points, which make reference to the UN Declaration Of Human Rights, Article 23, before Belfast barrister and husband of Sharon Corr, Gavin Bonnar, rises to speak. The Artists’ Charter is his brainchild.
Bonnar has sought, in The Artists’ Charter, to express the issues surrounding file-sharing in fundamental legal principles, going beyond the small-minded bickering that has dominated the debate to date and focusing on the basic rights that are being undermined. The intent is to illuminate how all artists – not just the bigger names – are suffering as a result of the wanton misuse of their copyright material, and to provide a launching pad for a proper debate and, hopefully, real action.
Flanked by singer and Voice Of Ireland judge Bressie, Steve Wall of The Stunning fame and Devlin, Bonnar begins his address in personal terms. “It’s a different business now,” he says. “And I’ve seen that close up because I’m married to someone in the business, I have lots of friends in the business. In the whole debate, backwards and forwards, there was no real concentration on the artist, or on those people who have the creative spark… who are able to create something out of their own imagination that become songs that we live and die by and define our lives by and that mean a lot to us.
“So as far as I can see,” he adds, “this is a rights issue that has been missed and one we should be taking really seriously – especially in Ireland because we trump up our artists when it suits us. They didn’t let us down with the economic collapse. The Taoiseach likes to say that the artistic community have done us proud around the world but I don’t see any support for them. I’m not just talking about the known bands around the country, I’m talking about people who are on the fringes, at the beginning of trying to make a career.”

Launched in Ireland, The Artists’ Charter is a global initiative, already available in a multitude of languages, waiting to be signed by everyone who supports the idea that artists really should be paid for their work.
It is supported by an increasing number of Irish and international artists. Gemma Hayes had planned to be on the podium for the launch but her car broke down on the way. Imelda May is another hugely successful artist who has signed up.
“I’m a huge supporter of this charter and of anyone who supports artists’ rights,” she told Hot Press. “Creativity needs to be supported, as this then supports a large network of hard-working people. The music industry creates a huge amount of employment not just for musicians but also for music festival, music venue, record company, radio station and music magazine employees, to name just a few – from sound engineers to lighting riggers and truck drivers etc.
“On a practical level, if this industry collapses due to piracy and disregard for writers’ and performers’ rights, it would be devastating to many, many families who need it to earn their living. Regardless of whether a writer earns a million euros or a cent, everyone should justly expect to be paid for work done. This is a right that most people do not have to fight for – so why should a whole community of people (ie writers and musicians) be treated differently? I am proud to stand amongst all others here and be counted as a supporter of this Charter!”
Kian Egan of Westlife is another star who has joined the campaign.
“I am delighted to back The Artists’ Charter,” he said. “Fair remuneration for artists is a human right, as the Charter says. We in the creative community have been ignored for too long in the file-sharing debate and the music industry simply cannot continue shedding jobs and revenues to the tune of billions of dollars. The Charter gives artists the chance to finally speak with one voice and say: ‘no more.’ I am backing it 100% and urge all you lovers of music to do likewise.”
And they were also joined by Brian Kennedy.
“ I fully support the artists’ charter and want to stand up and be counted,” the Belfast-born singer said. “This is too serious an issue not to be highlighted, by Gavin Bonnar and my fellow musicians. Stealing is stealing. Let’s call it how it is. The internet should move us forward, not backwards.”
Others who have expressed their support for The Artists’ Charter include Danny O’Reilly of The Coronas, Billy McGuinness of Aslan, John Spillane, Mick Flannery and Sharon Corr. It may just be the beginning of a movement.

Gavin Bonnar’s speech turns to figures, and he focuses his sights on telecommunication companies. He argues very specifically that it is internet giants who have devalued copyright laws. Since Google’s take-over of Youtube in 2006, he states, the music business has lost $1 billion in revenue each year, while the telecommunications sector, which dwarfs music in economic terms, has doubled to $250 billion.
“Google started off as a fledgling company,” Gavin offers. “And they’ve now morphed into a multinational corporation with revenue of billions and billions and billions – and they behave like a multinational with billions and billions and billions. They fight patent cases. They are assiduous in ensuring that their own rights aren’t being trampled on. And yet, on the other side, from 2005, you really began to see the ramping up of copyright infringement in a way that has an increasingly devastating effect on the creative industries.”
Bressie, formally of The Blizzards, is a big hit at the moment on The Voice. But he is also a struggling performer, battling to achieve recognition in the shark-filled waters of the UK music business. His young admirers in the audience might have hoped merely for a glimpse of their pin-up, but they are soon hearing about how tough it is for an artist now to earn a crust. Bressie is convinced of the importance of The Artists’ Charter in a time of crisis in the industry.
“A lot of this affects me,” he states, matter of factly. “A lot of people came up to me after The Blizzards broke up and they asked: why did we break up? The answer was, two or three of the other guys had children. They couldn’t pay their rent. It’s not a sob story, it’s a reality. People say, ‘You shouldn’t have left the band’. I never left the band. I had to make that decision because there was no revenue. We were being robbed. That’s the bottom line.”
He makes the point that once the revenues dry up, so does the investment.
“The reality is,” he adds, “I work in the music industry in London with the labels. They have no interest in developing talent now, and it’s not because they don’t want to, it’s because they can’t afford it. We are being robbed.”
It was Sharon Corr who prompted Bressie to get involved with The Artists’ Charter.
“Sharon cares about it,” he explains. “She cares about the bedroom musician who makes music for themselves and can’t get paid for it.”
Even more established acts are suffering. Steve Wall is one such musician, who takes the opportunity presented by The Music Show to contrast The Stunning’s start-up with The Walls’ current reality.
“As The Stunning,” he says, “we played for four years and our first album came out and it was No.1 for five weeks. We have a new album coming out now and I don’t think we will ever recoup what we put into it, in terms of time and the cost. With previous albums, we would press 5,000 CDs at a time and then you would run out and press more. Now, we’re pressing a thousand and that’s plenty. It’s scary.”
While Steve concedes that it is difficult to turn the tide, it is also vital.
“It’s like you’ve got a tap in your house, and it’s broadband and it’s getting faster and faster and more accessible and you can do it on your phone. You don’t even need a computer anymore. You’ve got music coming through this tap. And now it’s movies. It’s TV series. Everything is just there.”

For his part, Barry Devlin recognises that it is impossible for music fans to feel sympathy for the major labels. But to look at it in that way is to miss the point entirely.
“There were a lot of men in suits who wanted to make a great deal of money and the record business got very fat and very self-indulgent,” he acknowledges. “It wasn’t a caring and compassionate industry, by and large. But if you strip away all the money and all the coke and all the PR, and all the spin, there is still a basic question: ‘Do you feel that a guy who writes songs ought to be paid something for the songs he writes?’”
And that is the simple crux of the matter. The Artists’ Charter aims to make the simplicity of that issue crystal clear.
“We’re not trying to lecture, we’re trying to educate,” Bressie says. “I don’t believe in going to an eight-year-old child and saying, ‘You’re illegally downloading’ – they don’t know what illegally downloading is. They don’t know they’re affecting the artist, there’s no issue, there’s no education there – because the big companies don’t want them to know.”
Which is what it boils down to. The telecoms in general want to crush artists and strip them of their rights. The Artists’ Charter represents an attempt for artists to strike back, for the symbolic David to take on the Goliath of the telecoms business.
So is it wishful thinking, to imagine that a struggling songwriter might have a few extra quid in his or her pocket sometime soon as a direct result of the launch of The Artists’ Charter? Gavin Bonnar addresses just that question.
“It is aspirational,” he says. “But… if you can identify the right, then you can find the remedy. If we could all leave this room with one thing in mind, if you have any feelings, any anger about how artists are being treated, it should be directed at Google or to the telecommunications companies who really don’t give a rat’s ass about creative people – they just give a rat’s ass about making billions off the back of their content.”
As for a solution?
“I honestly believe that the money these companies are making [in the telecommunications industry] are so gross, they’re so large, that if a just proportion of that money were put back into the creative sector, one, they wouldn’t miss it and, two, it would benefit us hugely,” Gavin offers. “But there’s just no will, so far, on the behalf of the telecommunications sector to get to that stage. They talk and they waffle about having roundtable discussions year after year. We’ll debate copyright in 2020 – but if you’re a young band at the moment and you’re trying to make it in this industry, by 2020 your vision will be over.”
The time for action is now. The Artists’ Charter has started the ball rolling...

Go to www.theartistscharter.org.