International Federation of the Phonographic Industry

IFPI is the International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers. In 1974 IFPI changed the meaning of its name from International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. It was formed with the stated aim of representing the recording industry in negotiations with BIEM (Bureau International de l'Edition Mecanique) for the payment of mechanical royalties to the promote the legal rights of record producers during 1933 in Rome, Italy, under the fascist government of Benito Mussolini by companies mainly owned or controlled by General Electric in the United States of America. IFPI is known by its use of the word pirate in highly publicized legal attacks upon any person or group who distributes unlicensed material created by a member of IFPI.

Brief history

IFPI began as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in Rome under the laws of fascist Italy during 1933 at the time of its inaugural Congress. IFPI was created following the consolidation of the record industry under the primary control of General Electric in the USA with the stated aim of representing the recording industry in negotiations with BIEM (Bureau International de l'Edition Mecanique) for the payment of mechanical royalties to the promote the legal rights of record producers. Its British arm is Phonographic Performances Limited located on Berners Street in London, England. In 1974 IFPI changed the meaning of its name to International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers.

Origin of name

In the UK a phonograph refers to a machine that plays a cylinder recording roll, but in the USA it refers to a record player that plays flat discs. In the UK a gramophone refers to a machine that is also called a record player that is used for playing flat discs, while in the USA it refers to a machine for playing cylinder recording rolls. Because the entire IFPI and PPL enterprise was of American origin, American terminology was used.

For many years recorded discs sold in America were free from restrictions imposed as terms of use printed on the labels, but in the UK records always came with the warning that: Unauthorized public performance or broadcasting of this record is strictly prohibited. As early as 1934 a test law suit was brought against the landlord of a public house in Bristol, England for allowing a radio set to be played in the bar where the general public could hear it, since radio sets in the UK had also been licensed since 1922.

Combining licenses

Although IFPI controlled the majority of the intellectual products electronically created on recorded disc, IFPI did not control the means of electronically advertising those recordings, because IFPI did not control the means of broadcasting. In each governmental jurisdiction broadcasting has become the licensed activity of the state itself, but in the United Kingdom a combination of forces came together during the 1920s and 1930s which linked the interests of IFPI with the interests of the State.

Stations as locations

In 1922 the British General Post Office (GPO) built upon a series of laws that had been constructed over a long period of time around the definition of the word station. This word which also appears in the preamble of the United States Declaration of Independence, is a place where a person or groups of people are geographically located. It where police are to be found; rail trains stop to pick up passengers and it is also a place where transmitters are used to broadcast signals. It means a geographical location. When the GPO combined this interpretation with the theory that radio stations are merely an extension of wireless telephony; wireless telegraphy; telephones and telegraphs as electronic post offices where messages are collected and distributed, it became possible for the British government to place all such activites under strict government control by licensing.

In 1922 the GPO all unlicensed wireless broadcasting to be an outlaw pirate activity. In order to control the content of what could be broadcast within the United Kingdom, all of the Briish and American electrical manufacturers doing business in the UK who had an interest in commencing wireless broadcasts, were forced into forming one commercial cartel. That cartel was given the name British Broadcasting Company and it was the only entity licensed by the GPO to broadcast in the UK. In 1927 the original BBC was bought out by State. Its assets were turned over to the British Broadcasting Corporation which had been granted both a royal charter and a license to broadcast.

Finger-pointing at the USA

Meanwhile, in the United States, the free-for-all commercial approach to broadcasting was blamed in the 1930s for the death of the American recording industry, which coincided with the General Electric Company buying and merging all of its broadcasting and recorded music interests into new divisions. In the USA General Electric followed the lead of the GPO and attempted to create its own commercial version of the BBC when it formed NBC, the (National Broadcasting Company). There was a lot of interchange between the BBC and NBC in the early years. In the UK the interests of General Electric were initially merged into a new British company called EMI (Electric and Musical Industries) which was subject to British laws and licensing. All of these moves were attempts to control the free access of recorded material and it was in this same era that IFPI was born under the laws of the fascist government of Benito Mussolini at Rome in Italy.

Pirate printers and publishers

Initially the copyright laws of England were rights to copy that were held exclusively by the Crown, even though the works were created by individuals. The State was then able to censor distribution by refusing to grant copyright licenses to both printers and publishers.

The famous 1637 Star Chamber court trial of John Lilburne was brought over a copyright licensing infringement, but it resulted in the creation of the legal right of an individual to remain silent and not answer when charged with a criminal offence. In 1966 this 1637 case was incorporated by direct reference to the words of John Lilburne, into the United States Supreme Court wording of Miranda v. Arizona, the (Miranda Warning.)

The reason for licensing both the printing presses and the publishers was to control what was written, reproduced and widely distributed. The foundation of this idea is found in the history of the Roman Catholic Church department called the Index. The Index served the same purpose, prior to the invention of the printing press, as the later copyright licensing laws. When wireless telegraphy led to wireless telephony (radio broadcasting), this same approach to licensing was used in Britain to control the airwaves.

Because listeners could hear music free of charge over the USA airwaves, it led to an early collapse of the American record industry in the 1930s. In a determination to stop this practice from destroying their international markets, the General Electric Company used the same censorship system defined by the British copyright laws, to control its recorded musical empire.

Birth of pirate radio

When the BBC was first created in 1922, its managing director was a Scottish Calvinist named John Reith who had very specific ideas concerning the application of morality. Reith was in a position to use the Church of England as the official State religion to impose his version of morality on the British nation via the broadcasting transmitters of the BBC. Just two years after taking his office, Reith expressed his dictatorial views in the form of a strict schoolmaster when writing his first autobiography called Broadcast Over Britain. Reith believed that the British public did not know what was good and therefore it was up to John Reith to use the BBC to enlighten them.

As part of this strict censorship over the only means of broadcasting, Reith found willing friends in the recording industry who did not want their products to be aired free of charge in the UK, as they had been aired in the USA. Other allies were the musicians who felt threatened by recorded music and the Musicians' Union in Britain, taking a cue from the Musicians' Union in the USA, together with the record companies and John Reith at the BBC, then created a programming practice called needle time. (For a related explanation about "needle time" see: John Peel.)

Needle time

Needle time was a restrictive agreement that necessitated the BBC to hire live musicians and play live music, while giving very limited airtime to recorded music. The musicians had employment, the record companies retained control over their products and John Reith maintained control over what was morally acceptable to be broadcast over the BBC.

To overcome this restriction, a commercial undertaking called the International Broadcasting Company was born by leasing time on transmitters based in countries outside of the United Kingdom, but which could be heard in the UK. During the 1930s ten such English language stations came into operation. Among the most successful were Radio Normandie and Radio Luxembourg. Because Winston Churchill was banned from the BBC prior to World War II, he not only became a pirate radio broadcaster, but he delivered a famous speech over American radio in which he claimed that Hitler and Mussolini were not really frightened by bombs, tanks or planes, they were afraid of words spoken abroad but audible in their countries. These words, said Churchill were like "a little mouse" that terrified all dictators. In the 1950s, Churchill was responsible for ending the BBC monopoly of television broadcasting. In his biography of Churchill his doctor claimed that Churchill created commercial television as a means of retaliation against he legacy of John Reith.

Failure of censorship

By 1938 on Sundays, over 80% of British listeners who were within range of the English language European commercial stations broadcasting to Britain had turned off the BBC and turned on Radio Normandie, Radio Luxembourg or a similar station. It was Adolph Hitler and his Nazi drive to conquer Europe that finally silenced these stations and saved the BBC.

Control of airtime

After World War II the battle for freedoms of the airwaves, which in reality meant freedom to hear recorded music, began all over again. To control the restarting of pirate radio from the continent of Europe, the major record labels managed to supress commercial broadcasting to Britain with the exception of Radio Luxembourg at night. To overcome that problem, the record companies then bought up most of the available airtime and presented their own shows which featured the playing of a fraction of each record, with the heavy plugging of the record label and even its numerical code that was printed on the disc.

The 1960s

The birth of the Beatles proved to be a major money maker for EMI and other IFPI companies which followed suit by finding artists that followed the same musical trend. At first the American airwaves were filled with British recorded music, while in Britain the airwaves were still controlled by needle time. It took the advent of Radio Caroline to become Britain's first all-day music station by broadcasting from a ship anchored three and half miles off shore and outside of both IFPI and GPO control. Retaliation was swift. IFPI mounted its campaign of attack against Radio Caroline through Phonographic Performances, Limited by immediately branding the station as a pirate. The GPO reacted by preventing all ship to shore telephone communications, except in the case of a maritime emergency. Radio Caroline survived because both its on air live studios and transmitters were located on board its ship.

New censorship law

By early 1967 there were ten independent offshore broadcasting stations anchored or established at various points off the British coastline. These included three stations established by Don Pierson of Eastland, Texas, which were hybrids of the most successful commercial radio formats which could be heard at that time in the United States. In the end it took a series of tragic events that were unrelated to the issue of censorship to create a political climate where the socialist government of the day had enough support to pass a sweeping new censorship law. The Marine Broadcasting Offences Act turned the preachers, djs, news readers, commercial advertisers, cooks, suppliers, captains and crews of the offshore stations, into criminals facing heavy fines and prison sentences if they continued to broadcast. On Tuesday, August 15, 1967 this draconian new censorship law became effective and it resulted in the overnight death of the majority of the offshore stations. On its last day of broadcasting, Wonderful Radio London had an audience rated somewhere around 12 million listeners in the UK alone, with many more on the European continent.

Resorting to jamming

In the late 1960s another attempt was made at commercial offshore broadcasting and this time it resulted in the Royal Navy being called in to operate a massive jamming transmitter. In the 1980s the British government stationed a ship almost alongside another ship station which had gathered five million British listeners in as many months. The intention of the monitoring ship was to photograph and document for later prosecution, everyone who supplied food, water, fuel, or broadcasting material to the radio ship. As a result of these activities the station was eventually declared bankrupt and it left the airwaves. Radio Caroline which had survived off and on as an offshore broadcaster until 1990, was finally forced off the air when new powers were granted by Parliament to enable raids to take place on radio ships anchored in international waters outside of former British legal jurisdiction.

Piracy and censorship

The history of censorship has become obfuscated by the new use of the word piracy, which originally referred to the hijacking of ships at sea. Today is being used to describe the practice of the unauthorized use of intellectual property. Clearly artists and creators of intellectual works are entitled to a reward for their efforts in presenting new ideas, but unfortunately the electronic means of communication has become controlled like the printing presses of old, so that the commercial interests producing the IFPI licensed products, are also in the control of the means of distribution. Today this clash has resulted in the invention of the term pirate radio which now refers to instances when the means of distribution is no longer under the control of IFPI and its associated interests. In the 1960s this clash led to an interesting situation where pirate radio stations were increasing the popularity of IFPI licensed products, and thereby boosting the commercial sales of its member companies. The companies thus began supplying the pirate radio stations while protesting in the newspapers that the pirate radio stations should be shut down.

For his book (page 84, see reference below), Dr. Eric Gilder "(EG)", interviewed Don Pierson "(DP)" who created Wonderful Radio London, Swinging Radio England and Britain Radio on board two ships anchored off southeastern England in the 1960s, in which he asked for his views concerning the behavior of IFPI members:

EG: Your commercial radio station depended upon recorded music; what kind of a relationship did you have with the major record companies in the UK, especially since they had a history of promoting the restrictive practice of "needle time"?

DP: Well it's kind of interesting. The major record companies were, in the press, criticizing our operations. And, yet, each morning, or each afternoon, their messengers were delivering their latest records to us at our London offices to be played on the stations. Finally, one of the major record companies came out with a blast against the free, offshore "pirate" radio stations, and condemning them. When I saw that in the press one day in London, I simply called the managing director of that company, and I told him that we had records of all the visits daily from their messengers, and I did not appreciate the hypocrisy of their condemning us in the press, and yet sending us all these records to build their business. And that if I read another hypocritical article in the press, I was simply going to expose them. And from that time on, we enjoyed quite good relations with the major record companies there in England.

Conflict of interest

While the record companies represented by IFPI wanted to brand Wonderful Radio London as a pirate, that station and another called Radio 390 actively attempted to make royalty payments for the use of recorded material. However, because of the vested mutual interests in the relationship between the British State and PPL which represented the interests of IFPI, these payments were accepted begrudgingly. This strange situation has resulted in obvious conflicts of interest. An example is found in the behaviour of Cliff Richard who had this to say on August 14, 1967, over the air as Wonderful Radio London was being forced off the air because of the new censorship law that went into effect the following day:

Many thanks for all of the plugs in the past, and um, thanks for being so nice about our records, hope and wish you all the very best for the future, staff and djs and whatever you do.

Then, a few years later, the same Cliff Richard was quoted in the IFPI advertising supplement dated June 11, 1983 which was published as a part of Billboard magazine:

The British recording star Cliff Richard made an individual contribution to IFPI's anti-piracy fund of $5,000 while on a tour of the Far East in 1982. Having seen for himself the extent of piracy in the region, Richard expressed particular concern for local artists. ... "I feel that giving a donation to IFPI and SPA (Singapore Association), is the best way I can help the local artist. If I were to give money for a scholarship it wouldn't be so productive, as musicians are not able to make a living in the present climate. Improve the piracy situation and local artists will thrive. It's a question of the horse before the cart."

However, it was the Beatles who saved the British record industry and while the BBC did feature their music from time to time, the only place that their music could be heard all day long was on one of the 10 offshore radio stations of the 1960s. Therefore it is of particular note that attention should be paid to comments by members of the Beatles concerning the alleged "piracy" of their work. In an interview on a Los Angeles radio station (later repackaged and released as part of a record album of comments by the Beatles), John Lennon said:

"... pirate ships they call them, off the British coast ... you get good records all day which you never got before, boy, I love it!"

On August 6, 1966 George Harrison explained his views in the weekly music tabloid Disc during an interview with Ray Coleman:

"I can't understand the Government's attitude over the pirates. Why don't they make the BBC illegal as well - it doesn't give the public the service it wants, otherwise the pirates wouldn't be here to fill the gap. The Government makes me sick. This is becoming a Police State. They should leave the pirates alone. At least they've had a go, which is more than the BBC has done..."

On August 14, 1967 during the final hour of Wonderful Radio London before it signed off for ever, the station aired these final comments by Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones:

"... we're very sad to see you go, you've given us a lot of good times. Thank you very much ..."

Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys also added his comments during that same broadcast:

"... the rest of the Beach Boys and myself are very sorry that Radio London's going off the air ... we owe a lot of our success to Radio London's playing of our records and we're very sad to see it go off as a lot of our fellow American artists are, and we would just like to say thank you."

Even the now controversial Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam after converting to Islam), expressed deep regrets about the result of government action to create criminals out of those labeled as "pirate" broadcasters:

"... this is Cat Stevens and I would like to say first of all how very, very sorry I am to hear that Radio London is going off the air because I think its really helped a lot of people in the past. It certainly helped me what with 'I Love My Dog' and I really am quite sorry to hear its going off."

IFPI has attempted to portray the interests of its member recording companies as being the interests of the artists who made the records, which clearly is not the case. There are also comments from many other major recording stars who have expressed similar sentiments concerning their own desire for exposure of their material, versus the controlled exposure sought by IFPI.

Today

New technologies: more censorship

IFPI and its affiliated groups attempted to gradually introduce similar copyright laws into the USA. Eventually the US climate began to shift in the direction of IFPI and a new (p) (phonorecording) copyright symbol was placed on US recordings. (At the present time the symbol is not included in standard computer fonts.)

When analogue cassette tapes began to make way for digital recordings, IFPI began to take a keen legal interest in all emerging new technowledgies. As before IFPI mounted legal attacks, but this time it brought the fight home to America via its affiliated interests. One of its first targets was the Tandy corporation which had announced the creation of a consumer line of audio duplicators. Then video duplication became available and IFPI took aim at its manufacturers.

Following the birth of the Internet and the growth of the World Wide Web as an alternative to broadcast entertainment, the personal computer became a means of file sharing music and video recordings. This has also been followed by very public lawsuits aimed at individual end users, or even those who merely provided the techology for use by the end user. As a result, grandpas and grandmas who thought that they were delivering a blessing to their grandchildren by providing them with access to online recorded music, suddenly found themselves in the press and on television with reporters asking them how they reacted to the lawsuits filed against them by interests related to IFPI.

Copyright enforcement

Today IFPI remains a highly controversial trade organisation that is involved in high profile litigation. It represents 1450 members of the recording industry in 75 different countries. Its stated intention is to promote the products of its members while using the copyright laws to attack new techologies or any means of distribution it has not licensed. IFPI now maintains its international secretariat in London and has regional offices in Brussels, Hong Kong, Miami, and Moscow.

IFPI structure

IFPI has recongnized (1988) 32 national groups of IFPI members and organizations affiliated to IFPI, including RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), FLAPF (Federaciôn Latinoamericasa de Productores de Fonogramas) and ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association).

IFPI has consultative status with ILO (International Labour Office), Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), WIPO (World Intellectual Porperty Organisation) and the Council of Europe. The ASEAN Music Industry Association (AMIA), IFPI's regional body in South East Asia, is affiliated to the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

IFPI membership

Any company or firm which produces sound or video recordings which are made available to the public in reasonable quantities is eligible for membership of IFPI. Other firms closely connected with the production of phonograms or video or their distribution may also be admitted. Membership categories and subscriptions relate to the size of the company. In those countries where there is a national group of IFPI or an affiliated organisation, potential members should first join the national body before seeking membership of IFPI.

Who's who of British music industry organisations

The following information appeared in the 1998, 50th Anniversary booklet of Phonographic Performances Limited:

Phonographic Performances Limited (PPL)
British Phonographic Industry Limited (BPI)
International Federation of Producers of Phonograms and Videograms (IFPI)
The Performing Right Society Limited (PRS)
Mechanical Copyright Protection Society Limited (MCPS)
Musicians' Union
British Videogram Association Limited
Video Performance Limited (VPL)
Common Law Institute of Intellectual Property Limited

References

Borwick, John. (Editor). - The First Fifty Years. 1933-1983. IFPI International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers - IFPI Secretariat, London. 1983 - ISBN 0-950-8655-0-8
Gilder, Eric. Mass Media Moments in the United Kingdom, the USSR and the USA - Contains interview with Don Pierson, a portion of which is cited above under Piracy and censorship"Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu Press, Romania. 2003 ISBN 973-651-596-6
Laing, Dave. - IFPI Review of the International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers - 100 Years of the Gramophone and the Disc. - IFPI. 1987. - ISSN 0265-5438 - ISBN 0-9508655-3-2
IFPI Information' (brochure} - IFPI Secretariat, London. 1988.
Solleveld, Coen (President of IFPI). - IFPI: The first 50 years ... the next 50 years, a 'Billboard' advertising supplement published on June 11, 1983.
Phonographic Performance Limited - 50th Anniversary. (booklet) - PPL, London, 1984.

External link

Official website for the IFPI