From me to the BBC producer of the programme

"Dear Mr Stone-Lee

You probably have not heard of me, yet once I was not unknown in the world of copyright, performers rights, and associated things. I have acted for clients against the BBC, worked closely with out-house lawyers acting for the BBC, and for years was perhaps the most recognised single lawyer involved in the campaign for the proper protection of "format rights" that was so opposed by Tom Rivers then of the BBC.

More recently I formed and led the "Performer-Lawyer Group" that campaigned against the many idiocies of the Licensing Bill (now the Licensing Act).   In my spare time I am an amateur folk-song-singer, and play the guitar and mandolin for that purpose.

I refer to the transcript below.

It seems to me that you have missed a significant point. You play "grime" music to illustrate the problem of Form 696. The police used to talk of "hip-hop" "garage" and "bashment" (I always did wonder who was responsible for the amusing but never corrected typo in the last one, it used to put me in mind of the Bash St Kids in the Beano) but the adverse effects of Form 696 are not limited to confrontational types of music.

The definition operated by the police of a "qualifying event" is all-embracing. It catches a harpist in a hotel lobby, it catches a group of OAPs gathered round a pub piano (if they can find one) for a sing-song, and it catches, to my great concern, a gathering of folk music enthusiasts in a local pub to sing and play together (and to be heard by those of the village who wish to come).   You could as accurately have played a recording of any of those things - but you did not. Your programme therefore gave a less than even-handed impression of who was oppressed and what suppressed by form 696.

I am organising an event on this very Sunday. It is in my local pub. Somewhere between 5 and 25 other amateur folkies, mostly between 50 and 80 years of age, will assemble at the pub and we will play and sing during the afternoon. And some of those in the pub will listen.

I have some idea which other enthusiasts may turn up - but it is an open invitation. So it would be absolutely impossible for me or for the manager of the local pub to gather the names and so on of the performers who will be there.

If Form 696 applied in my geographical area, this sort of informal gathering, singing, playing, and passing on of music, some traditional, some not, could not take place. There are other similar informal gatherings, in the London area, and in other urban areas, to which Form 696 is a very real risk. So form 696 challenges, for no good reason whatsoever, the preservation of our cultural heritage. Participative music, as distinct from the consumption of commercial music, is harmed.   

While this threat to harmless music-making proceeds, the grunting morons who gather to spill lager and fight while association football is shown on a big-screen TV (with amplifiers so it can be heard down the street) go without regulation under the Licensing Act, and are not subjected to any variant of Form 696.



Yours faithfully

RIchard McD. Bridge"