We’ve just launched a compelling new website – author societies.eu – to inform, entertain and stimulate debate on some of the issues affecting author societies now. We invite you to take a look.
If you visit the IMRO website (www.imro.ie) regularly, you’ll be up to speed on the work our society does here.
But we’re just one piece of the jigsaw. Every day across Europe, a network of author societies – just like this one – strives tirelessly to ensure their members, creators of the works we all enjoy so much, get a fair deal.
Our new platform ties the work of these 34 author societies together, putting into a shared European perspective the work we all do on a daily basis and what we set out to achieve.
Every week, you’ll be able to read more about the goings on of author societies across Europe. You can expect updates on inspiring award ceremonies and cultural events, fresh new studies, author-focused partnership agreements with industry, dynamic technological developments – and the legal changes affecting our work.
We hope that the site will be a real eye-opener, providing a real insight into the daily life of authors’ societies everywhere and a clear view of our overarching aims and what we stand for.
Log on today to find out more. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter too @authorsocietyeu
In 2010 IMRO launched an enhanced range of online services for members, all of which are available through the Members Only portal on the IMRO website www.imro.ie A considerable percentage of our membership are now using these services.
In keeping with our strategy of ongoing enhancements to the range of services available to members, the streamlining of the royalty administration process and our reduction in overall administration costs we are introducing a change to how we currently deliver our distribution statements to members. From April 2012, we will no longer produce paper statements for our distributions.
As per our current notification process, you will continue to receive an email from IMRO when your distribution statement is available online. Due to their “drillable” functionality, electronic statements provide members with much more performance information than could ever be offered on paper. If you wish, you may choose to receive paper statements; via the member details section of the member’s online area at www.imro.ie or in writing to IMRO. However, a €2 printing and postage charge will apply for each paper statement produced at a distribution.
The introduction of this change moves us much closer to paperless processes and the delivery of associated cost and service benefits to members.
This year’s Ardmore Pattern Festival will see the revival of the Ardmore Song Contest. Yes, we invite all you seasoned or budding Songwriters to enter “A Song for Ardmore” Song Contest 2012 and perhaps be the author of the next Ardmore Anthem. There’s a cash prize, trophy and studio recording session up for grabs!
Yes, decades before X-Factor was ever heard of, Ardmore played host to a Song Contest during the annual Pattern celebrations. One of the last to win the Ardmore Pattern Song Contest – in 1968 – were Welsh natives, Frank Hennessy & his musical partner David Burns, who formed part of the winning group. David still displays the Cup with pride. Frank is a radio presenter with BBC Wales and is best known for his composition of “The Old Carmarthen Oak,” which hit the Irish Charts in the guise of the well-known song, “The Old Dungarvan Oak.”
The Ardmore Pattern Festival Committee now plans to revive the Pattern Song Contest and we are, therefore, inviting Songwriters to enter “A Song for Ardmore” Song Contest. As the title suggests, the song must relate to Ardmore and reflect the composer’s own special connections with the area. The music & lyrics must not have been performed in public, broadcast or have been made available on the internet prior to 1st March 2012. The contest is open to all genres and can be entered in English or Irish. Initial adjudication will be based on entries received, from which finalists will proceed to perform their song at the Live Final to be held during the week of the Ardmore Pattern Festival, from the 23rd-29th July.
The winning Songwriter will receive €500, a Studio Recording Session and a specially commissioned Ardmore Pattern Festival Song Contest Trophy. So, get writing and get those entries in by completing the Song Conest Entry Form below and sending it back to us before the Closing Date, which is the 24th June 2012.
All entrants must be over 18 years of age and an entry fee of €20 applies. Please note that further terms and conditions apply – see the Entry Form for details.
“Music expresses that which cannot be said, and, on which it is impossible to be silent” – the inspirational words of Victor Hugo highlight the importance of music in our lives. Ardmore has been a special place for many people for generations and much has already been written in rhyme and verse to record its history, culture, people and places. It is a place on which “it is impossible to be silent”. So, we look forward to receiving your entries and happy song-writing!
If you have any queries, please e-mail us or further information is also available from John Supple on +353 (0)86 2330810.
A survey has revealed that Finns are ever-more supportive of authors’ societies, viewing them as essential to both Finnish culture and to authors themselves.
Here are a few of the survey’s highlights:
About 75% of Finns believe authors’ societies are both essential and working for a good cause.
Close to 80% of Finns agree that authors and musicians should be paid when their work is downloaded from the Internet, and even more – 82% – think that copyright royalties are essential for creators to persist in their creative endeavours.
Nearly 80% of those questioned think copyright royalties positively benefit Finnish culture.
Another positive insight from the survey – an overwhelming majority of Finns know Internet piracy is illegal. And only a small fraction, just 14%, think downloading illegal files is acceptable.
The survey was commissioned by LYHTY, Finland’s broadest association representing domestic artists, authors, and the content production industry. LYHTY is comprised of 14 organisations, one of which is Teosto – the Finnish Composers’ Copyright Society representing some two million right holders around the world.
Burningboy, aka Terry Byrne, has just released his debut EP, “The Dark Months”. Having already supported Snow Patrol and Glen Hansard, as well as featuring on the 2FM 2MORO Tour, Burningboy is quickly becoming an established singer-songwriter.
“The Dark Months” features some of Burningboy’s captivating atmospheric folk songs, rich in melody and sincerity. The EP was recorded over two days in the Golden Egg Studio, Co. Laois. Terry’s links to his home county also led to his contributing a track, “Tenderheart”, to the Connect One compilation released in 2010, which highlighted Laois artists and reach number 18 in the Irish album charts.
Release Date in Ireland – April 27th 2012 on 1969 Records
Featuring the New Single “An Autograph For My Dad”
::: LIVE :::2012
April 7 – Beyond The Bookshelf Festival, The New Theatre – 43 Essex St E Dublin 2
May 5 – Festival of the Fires – Co.Westmeath
May 6 – Summer Sessions , Iveagh Gardens, Dublin 2 (along with The Human League, The Stranglers, & Undertones)
May 18 – Whelans (Upstairs), Dublin – Official Album Launch
More Shows to be added; check website for updates
If you try to calculate the amount of music that calls on you to listen to it, you might feel the need to retreat to the nearest cave in order to escape it. Between the deluge of online chatter and most of what you’re force fed on too many radio stations to mention, it’s no wonder that sometimes the best music gets lost, and no surprise that sometimes the best bands get forgotten about.
20 years ago, The Pale made their major label debut with Here’s One We Made Earlier, an album that introduced a band that, from then to now, has succeeded in blindsiding their audience with music that is equal parts eminently melodic and utterly singular. “I’m not good at focusing on the commercial aspects of music and trends,” says The Pale’s lead singer and main songwriter, Matthew Devereux
Therein lays not only the pleasure for the creative spirit but also the problem for the accountants. Inevitably, The Pale’s tenure on the major label didn’t last too long, and so began a number of years where the band (in effect, Matthew and multi-instrumentalist Shane Wearen) soldiered on. Albums you’ve probably never seen stocked in record shops – Cheapside (1996), Cripplegate (1997), Spudgun (1998) – were released in parts of Europe you’ve probably never been to. The band even changed their name to Produkt, under which name more albums were released to further rippling waves of unawareness.
The aim, essentially, was to retain credibility. “I was inspired by artists whose careers I’ve followed through the years, and I take rather earnestly my inspirations from people who didn’t follow contrived commercial interests,” says Matthew of his cunning but not necessarily financially rewarding plan. “I didn’t want us to be revealed as such, because if you go for the quick buck it very rarely works out.” Back then, he admits, he took what was essentially anti-commercialism to extremes: “I wanted The Pale to have a cult-like following.”
At this stage – cult-like following achieved – Matthew admits to barely eking out a living. Gigging, he remarks, provided the financial wherewithal for him. Shane, meanwhile, played music and taught web design. “I was involved in various different projects that mostly crashed and burned!,” he says. “When The Pale isn’t operative, I play music; yet whenever I go away from music I always veer back towards it after a month or two.”
Call it resilience (compulsion, even), but such a stance is so innate that it becomes part of the creative DNA. And so – without a nod to either popularity or profitability – The Pale carried on. Matthew and Shane admit that while they couldn’t get to grips with the often mercurial nature of the music industry, they still wanted to make musical statements.
“For us to get albums released in even one European territory was a victory,” comments Matthew. “My ambition was obviously not for The Pale to become smaller, but it seemed that we were just out of tandem with the industry, particularly in Ireland.”
The stakes, such as they were, had also gotten too high for The Pale. By the mid-‘90s music acts had to have a financial outlay. “We could go to the table,” recalls Matthew, “we could pull off a poker face and play a game, but we didn’t have the money to put into the pot.”
Yet The Pale refused to fold – “quite simply, myself and Shane have been designed to do what we do.” The frustrating part was that each time they released a new album, virtually everything “was reflected back to our early records and the cheeky chappie image we had back then. We, on the other hand, had been developing, maturing, changing.”
Which more or less brings us bang up to date. Developing, maturing, changing – these are crucial patterns for anyone, let alone creative types. What was paramount for the band, reveals Matthew, was gaining a broader education and the justified notion of an artist “chasing a masterpiece”, which he admits, “is the ignition for my ambition.”
Some people might think such a quest unwise, but there’s no doubting the validity of it. The past five years has seen two albums – The Contents Of A Shipwreck (2007) and Proper Order (2009) – continue The Pale’s pilgrimage for perfection. New album, I Woke Up And I Was Gone, sees the band reach out and grasp it. The album features a dozen beautifully measured songs that nudge the parameters of lo-fi pop/folk – nugget-sized and gem-like, charming tracks such as Company Of Wolves, It Should Be Illegal, The Boy With The Antlers, Hanging Around Airports and An Autograph For My Dad highlight the casual simplicity of perfect pop.
Coming from the pen of a man who cheerfully admits to once being too cerebral for his own good, the new album is a pithy, often poignant departure. “I feel guilty about how indirect or obscure I may have been about certain things,” says Matthew with a wry grin. “We suddenly found the drive again to make the music far more accessible, more direct. I had realised we needed to be. Back in the day, my youthfulness and aggression got in the way of looking for clarity.”
The new songs – largely written over the past three years while Matthew was based in Prague – are based on truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. “When I was younger I wanted the music to do different things, one of which wasn’t the kind of truth that I feel we’ve stitched though The Pale’s work in the past five years. I’ve realised, ultimately, that truth has freed me.” The feedback to this sense of directness has taken Matthew by surprise. “The more honest I was the more I connected with it. The idea that I can be so direct and that people are open-hearted to it is something I never expected.”
‘Roll down the window, throw away the plot…’, sings Matthew on It Should Be Illegal, one of the album’s many highlights. The lyric could well be The Pale’s new modus operandi – after over 20 years of working through life’s stuff and nonsense, it seems they have come to realise, finally, that less is more.
“It’s about everything in its right measure,” reasons Matthew. “I could never understand why some people I know would spend 12 years to be a brain surgeon. But now? Now I totally get it.”
Sunflowerfest is to return with a bang in August 2012, now in its third year and bigger and better than ever before, Sunflowerfest offers more for the discerning festival goer.
This years festival will have a little something for everyone, four stages of music, The Finn McCool main stage, The Campfire Stage, The Barn and brand new additions to Sunflowerfest, The Electric Disco Shed and The Moot, an arena of ideas where there will be debates, poetry, comedy and all things cerebral. The line-up will include the very best of local talent, but for the first time will include international guest artists across a broad range of genres, appealing to audiences of all ages.
The bands and artists confirmed to perform at this years event so far are; Duke Special | Republic Of Loose | Relish | Jape | Brass Roots | Silhouette | Dreadzone | Lanterns on The Lake | Wonder Villains | A Plastic Rose | Fighting With Wire | Lost Brothers | Tucan | Ben Glover | Walls (Kompakt) | Auntie Flo | Janice Graham Band | The Hot Sprockets | The Dead Presidents |The Barley Mob | Ryan Vail | Defcon | Kianni | Casion | Boss Sound Manifesto | Scroobius Pip | Magwere | The Bonnevilles | Katie and The Carnival | Elspeth | Seven Summits | Swanee River | Nasa Assassin | Radioactive Grandma | Payola | Ursula Burns | Rachel Austin | Roysta | Katherine Phillipa | The Unprotected | Six Miles North | Chris Campbell | Million $ Reload | Andre and The J Tones | Parachutes Over Paris | Dolbro Dan | Stereo War favourites | Intermission | Palookaville DJ’s | Red Rasta Soundsystem DJ’s | Homespun DJ’s | Twitch DJ’s
For the kids we will see the return of the Kidz Zone, The Enchanted Glade of Narnia and heaps of other cool stuff for families.
There will be quirky stalls at the craft and boutique village with gourmet food stalls from around the world. A new addition to this area will be the Love Music Hate Racism music tent, which will have some very special guests dropping in. Sunflowerfest will also have a field devoted to complementary therapies of all types where you can relax and get in touch with the spirit of the countryside, making Sunflowerfest a relaxing experience for all.
For those night owls there will be a late night Silent Disco and Cinema Tent, firm favourites from previous years.
Families are again very welcome this year and there will be a separate campsite provided.
Sunflowerfest 2012 will be announcing additional acts and a day-by-day breakdown shortly.
Sunflowerfest is a volunteer based festival. From its inception Sunflowerfest has been building a dedicated team of volunteers. This year there will be roles for around 100 volunteers. Anyone who would like to get involved with the festival can fill in an application form on the website. It is a very rewarding experience and a good way of learning new skills, meeting new people and being part of a fantastic experience.
Extracted from a speech delivered by Victor Finn, CEO IMRO, at the IMRO sponsored Independent Broadcasters of Ireland (IBI) Annual Conference in Dublin on 3rd April 2012.
2012 is an important year for all those involved in the creative sector. You may all be aware the government is engaged in a review of copyright and has established an expert committee to this end. Copyright it seems is to have its day in the sun – or is it?
The Review Committee are asked to, and I quote
“…Identify any areas that are perceived to create barriers to innovation”
…a rather strange question is it not? Creativity and innovation go hand in hand, do they not? Copyright is the means by which creativity and by extension, innovation are rewarded.
The creative sector is at the forefront of innovation. Yet the terms of reference seem to imply that certain conclusions are already drawn. The terms of reference are negatively framed suggesting that copyright somehow impedes innovation.
The Copyright Review Consultation paper recently issued states that:
“The internet particularly encourages interactive user innovation”
It seems to suggest that innovation is the exclusive preserve of the technology sectors. There appears to be a fundamental miss-understanding of the role and the value of the creative sectors at certain levels. Do our decision makers truly understand the value and potential of the creative sector in Ireland?
This may be, in part, our own fault. We have failed to establish the value that creators in the arts and entertainment fields bring to the economy. We have all basked in the many successes of our artists, songwriters, authors, film makers and others over the years. But have we fully understood how this success has come about?
Of course much creative endeavour is achieved without the specific objective of commercial success. Nonetheless the creative industries have managed to deliver much needed economic activity at home and overseas and have done more than any other sector of our society to create a very positive image of Ireland. This is even more important today given the rebuilding of trust that we must undertake as a nation.
The diversity and quality of music in Ireland is the most important ingredient in fostering our reputation as a dynamic and culturally rich nation. This can best be achieved through a partnership of individuals who create the copyright material, government who support these creators through the implementation of copyright law and private organisations who assist the creators in maximising the value of their copyright material.
And, yes of course, we need and welcome the new innovative technology companies locating in Ireland. Ireland welcomes all the foreign direct investment, jobs and the attendant benefits to our economy.
Yes we value the new business opportunities that the Internet delivers to the creative sectors.
Yes we support the government in maximising these opportunities to the benefit of the country at large especially in these times of economic recovery.
But we need to achieve all of these aspirations by achieving a balance between innovation and reward.
Copyright – at its most basic level is simply a means to reward creativity. Creativity is innovation. Creativity can never be construed as a barrier to innovation.
The future for music is in broadcast, in online, on mobile and cloud platforms, all offering growth prospects. Growth will be created through partnerships between creative industries and technology companies, not by these sectors being placed in opposition to one another. Respect and reward for innovation go hand in hand with copyright protection, promotion and enforcement.
And that is the real problem for industries depending on intellectual property – enforcement.
How can Ireland expect to attract creative industries and to act as a digital copyright exchange, as suggested in the Copyright Review, if we do not provide an environment that both respects and protects the commercialisation of such assets? Promoting Ireland as a location for the International Copyright Exchange on the one hand, while simultaneously relaxing the laws of copyright on the other is inconsistent and sends mixed messages to potential investors.
We look forward to engaging fully with the governments review and so that both our sectors can deliver real and lasting benefits to the Irish economy.
A Dublin City Centre Multi-Stage Music & Arts Festival
Saturday 2nd-Monday 4th June
June Bank Holiday Weekend
At The Royal Hospital, Kilmainham
SATURDAY LINE-UP ADDITIONS
FRIENDLY FIRES, HYPNOTIC BRASS ENSEMBLE, and MMOTHS have officially been added to the Forbidden Fruit Saturday Line- up – joining previously announced LEFTFIELD, BOOKASHADE, BLOODY BEETROOTS, THE FIELD, FACTORY FLOOR, BEAR IN HEAVEN, LE GALAXIE and TOBY KAAR
School mates FRIENDLY FIRES have been together since their teens, covering songs and gigging locally. Their big break came in 2007 and since then have been featured on television shows and adverts all over the world. With just two albums under their belt the alternative lads are by no means slowing down and will be bringing their disco funk sound to Kilmainham.
After supporting Prince in Malahide Castle HYPNOTIC BRASS ENSEMBLEare back inDublinonce again. The 8 brothers boast an extremely musical family hailing from the ever soulful South Side Chicago. Extroadinarly individual the brothers compose their own music and occasionally their father writes for them. Mesmirising and spell binding don’t miss Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.
MMOTHS
won’t have too far to travel as Newbridge based Jack Colleran takes to the stage on Saturday June 2nd. Tipped to be one of the biggest stars of 2012 MMOTHS went global in less than a month of the first two Soundcloud uploads. Putting his Leaving Cert studies to the wayside Jack was quickly picked up and signed – catch MMOTHS at Forbidden Fruit and you’ll understand the fuss.
Haven’t got your ticket yet? Buy them from ticketmaster.ienow – Day Tickets: E49.50 / Two Day Tickets: EU89.50 / Weekend Tickets: EU115
