Subject: RE: 'Celtic Music/Dave Bulmer' saga: Part 3
From:
GUEST,Ivan (ivan@kissmurphy.com.au)
Date: 06 Aug 02 - 09:13 PM
Hang about! There's some oversight in the arguments you are putting forward, fellow 'Guest'. You keep reiterating that there is 'no proof of legal wrongdoing' by CM/Bulmer, yet you yourself concede, at the least, that it is wrong to market CDRs at full price, as though they were legitimately manufactured (instead of bearing a bright red sticker stating 'WARNING: THESE ARE LOW-COST, LOW-QUALITY CDRs WHICH CUT EXPENSES BY AVOIDING ROYALTY PAYMENTS'). This is surely some sort of fraud, in terms of the Trade Practices Act (or whatever the equivalent is in the UK - I am writing from Australia). Having conceded that this is, in your own words, 'wrong', how do you maintain there is no proof of legal wrongdoing. Even if, in the tortuous terms of the law (which have little to do with ethics), this cannot definitively be proved to be LEGALLY malfeasant, then it is surely a sign of devious and unethical business practice. You also state that you are as much "on the artists' side as the next guy when it comes to them being paid fairly for their creative output, as well as being in control of how it gets used, when and by whom", yet you ultimately dismiss these claims/rights(?) because you say (and I personally don't know any details of the actual contractual/legal history here and so don't know if what you say is correct) that they signed those rights away out of, what is, at worst, a youthful naivety/ignorance. Should they really have to pay all their lives for such a thing? Regardless of the exactitudes of legal arguments, what about the ethics of it? Why is it really that you take the stance you do? Surely it is clear that Bulmer has not acted ethically, either with regard to his customers or the artists whose material he now "owns" (surely, in the larger framework, there is something wrong with a legal system that allows one person to utterly reap the benefits of others' creative labour with no real effort or input from him). He is also showing no regard for the public interest, in that he is utterly placing his self-interest against the larger interests of the public culture, in that he is withholding a very substantial contribution to UK culture from that public, for reasons that are not clear. Hypothetically, how would everyone feel if it were conceivable for a book publising company to buy up the rights to the works of, say, a large portion of the quality literature written in the UK between, say, 1970 and 1990, and then almost entirely withholding it from print. There would be an outcry and such a publisher would be howled down on the grounds of denying the public access to a vital part of its self-defining heritage. Why do you, by implication, side with Bulmer in this argument? Why do you not recognise the basic injustice here, for it is this that upsets people? It is clearly unjust, whatever the legalities? It is hard not to imagine you have some personal axe to grind here. Why do you not declare your identity. You pounced, with alacrity and delight, when you thought (mistakenly) that you had perceived some self-interest on Ralph Jordan's part. Could it be that you have some sort of interest in the Bulmer position and were delighted to think you had found self-interest in others because you perceive it in your own position and are stung by the thought that the vitriol could be turned on you if your interests were declared? Besides, what of the fact that Nic Jones stands to gain here? So he should. HE sat down and taught himself the guitar and attained a state of high accomplishment. HE went through the archives and chose the material. He pondered it long and hard, invented tunes, spent hours exploring the possibilities of melody, rhythm and tuning on his guitar and in his mind. He toured up and down the country to earn a living. HE played the material in the studio. HE sang it. HE created it. He gave a lifetime of hard-won expertise to it. What did Bulmer do? Paid a pittance for a bankrupt company then sells the music on poorly pressed material while so arranging his affairs to dodge his debt to the artists he makes money from, a debt both MORAL and ETHICAL if not legal, and it should be legal, as even under a fully legal regimen most of the profits would be (unjustly) his anyway. How can you defend this?
I would like to know what, if any, legal action HAS been taken against Mr Bulmer, by whom, and how the action fared. Have people made the effort of contacting the police, or a Consumer Complaints body, about the CDRs? Has anyone challenged his refusal to pay royalties?
Ivan
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