Artists, FAC and MU clash with BNP over CD comps

Industry bodies such as the Musician’s Union (MU) and The Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) have embarked on a campaign to try and stop the British National Party (BNP) from selling compilation CDs from their online store, Excalibur without the consent of the artists creating the songs.

Many high profile artists are fully supporting the efforts to stop the party selling music to generate funds without the artist who wrote the track having any say in the matter. They assert that this is essentially a violation of the moral rights of the artist to align their music with a political party, especially one with policies as controversial as the BNP.

The BNP is selling various compilations from the website, including titles such as ‘Best of British Folk’ alongside various supposedly patriotic themed CDs.

The situation showed artists had a "low level of moral rights", MU and FAC members said in a letter to The Times newspaper.

Noting that many of the artists included on such compilations were MU and FAC members the letter stated: “They (the artists) have no legal right to object to their music being used in this way".

The letter continued: "We would, on behalf of our joint membership of over 31,000 members, like to have our opposition to the BNP's politics and morals formally noted."

MU General Secretary John Smith signed the letter alongside FAC members including Billy Bragg, Blur's Dave Rowntree, Pink Floyd's Nick Mason and Ross Millard of The Futureheads (pictured above).

Earlier this year, it was reported by BBC News that singer Dame Vera Lynn, 92, was outraged and distressed that compilation album The White Cliffs of Dover, featuring her song of the same name, was being sold on the BNP website.

Of course, the key problem is that once a set of songs have been created and published, artists operating within traditional publishing deals will have no control over whom the songs are sold to for advertising or fundraising purposes and it will be entirely at the publisher’s discretion.

A BNP spokesman said in an official statement: “It's up to us what we sell - we're not changing. There's no suggestion through this that artists support the BNP or otherwise. They're barking up the wrong tree, to be honest".

Have your say! Would you be outraged to discover that your publisher had sold your song to the BNP for a compilation? How do we define or more importantly legally assert the so-called ‘Moral rights’ of artists? The BNP defence that there is no suggestion of the actual support of the artists through this is arguably flimsy - It is a powerful and dangerous political association to make with a song, especially when many artists have liberal sensibilities and are opposed to the BNP. Where will this one go next?