Friday, 26 November 2004

We don't need no education

Well, maybe they do: they should have secured the royalties agreement in advance. I guess it was just a matter of time.

A group of former London state school children who sang on Pink Floyd’s 1979 classic “Another Brick In The Wall” have lodged a claim for unpaid royalties.

Twenty-three teenage pupils from Islington Green School secretly recorded vocals for the track, which became an anthem for children with the chorus “We don’t need no education.”

On hearing the song, the headmistress banned the pupils from appearing on television or video—leaving them no evidence and making it harder for them to claim royalties—and the local school authority described the lyrics as “scandalous.”

I grew up hearing the song and managed to learn to appreciate education. I’m even pursuing a doctorate. Which reminds me: total derivatives of implicit functions SUCK! They seep out of my head after a few hours and I have to revisit the damn things every two days.
# By Robert Prather @ 6:24 pm CST [Permalink] « (0)
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Tags: Economics, Music
 

3 comments:

Any views expressed in these comments are solely those of their authors; they do not reflect the views of the authors of Signifying Nothing, unless attributed to one of us.
[Permalink] 1. bryan wrote @ Fri, 26 Nov 2004, 7:04 pm CST:

What. there’s no statute of limitations on this type of thing?

 
[Permalink] 2. MrsPurpleRaider wrote @ Sat, 27 Nov 2004, 2:37 pm CST:

There HAS to be a statute of limitations. That doesn’t mean you can’t file a suit, it just means you can’t win.
There seems to be quite a bit wrong with this claim, though. I bet they aren’t the only people who will suddenly claim to be those kids.

 
[Permalink] 3. Brock Sides wrote @ Sat, 27 Nov 2004, 6:05 pm CST:

The stories I’ve read just described them as filing a “claim,” not a lawsuit.

Here’s a story from ABC, explaining that it would not be Pink Floyd or EMI paying the royalties:

Now, one of the students, Peter Thorpe, has filed a claim to access royalties owed to session musicians and vocalists for all broadcasts of The Wall since 1997.

Peter Rowan of RBL Music, an Edinburgh-based royalties agent, says the money will not be paid by Pink Floyd or its record company EMI, but from a fund that is paid into by broadcasters each time they play songs on the air.

Here’s something from the Times on the legal questions:

A change in copyright law in 1996 means that the former choirboys are entitled to payment as session musicians. The Performing Artists’ Media Rights Association (Pamra), which distributes royalty payments, said that it would make payments to former pupils who can prove that they sang on the record.
 
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Signifying Nothing formerly featured the stylings of Brock Sides, a left-leaning philosopher turned network administrator currently residing in Memphis, Tennessee who now blogs at Battlepanda, and Robert Prather, a libertarian-leaning conservative economist and occasional contributor at OTB.

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