I am pleased to see that the Musicians Union has strongly condemned the actions of Camden Council who have voted to introduce punitive measures against buskers in the borough from early 2014.This means that buskers will have to pay for licences in order to busk and will risk large fines and having their instruments confiscated if they fail to adhere to the requirements of the policy.
Dave Webster, MU National Organiser for Live Performance, said:
“It is a real shame that just a year after the Live Music Act was brought in to encourage the performance of live music that Camden Council has decided to bring in these draconian measures against busking.
“Live music is an integral part of London’s identity and the onerous and potentially expensive requirements that Camden is placing on buskers will threaten the borough’s vibrant atmosphere. The references to ‘noise’ and ‘nuisance’ in Camden’s policy are particularly unhelpful and do not reflect the positive cultural contribution made by buskers to London life. The borough has given in to complaints made by a small group of residents who live on and around Camden High Street, which is inevitably a loud place to live irrespective of busking.
“We urge Camden Council to reconsider this policy and the MU would be happy to work with them to establish a code of best practice for busking, as we did in places like Liverpool.”
Camden has explicitly justified the busking licence on the grounds of residents’ rights to ‘peaceful’ enjoyment of their homes – in other words, Article 8 ECHR. Nowhere has it considered Article 10 rights for music makers.
Jonny Walker, who has led buskers campaigns against local licensing has had detailed legal advice from David Wolfe QC to the effect that Camden’s policy can be challenged on a number of grounds. A letter before action from Leigh Day has now been delivered.
Jonny is now seeking a fighting fund from musicians and the music industry.
The Ham and High report of the campaign, supported by Billy Bragg, Bill Bailey and Mark Thomas, is here:
Where is the evidence of a sustained and increasing nuisance from busking? None has been produced so far. Camden is proposing to ban street music at any time, unamplified or amplified, except through a special busking licence. Breach carries a fine of up to £1000.Their new busking licence will apply a blanket ban on the playing of any wind or percussion instrument on the street at any time
The council believes it can apply the busking licence wherever live music is exempted from a licence within the Licensing Act 2003 (LA2003). The Live Music Act 2012 (LMA), which amended the LA2003, is not mentioned.
The implication must be that the council believes even the unamplified performances exempted under LMA para 3(5) come within its busking licence remit.
In this light the DCMS busking advice page is definitely misleading.The Q&A page on the LMA says:
‘What are the licensing requirements for buskers?
‘Busking has generally not been licensable under the 2003 Act, a) as it is often does not occur at a place made available for entertainment or b) will usually be incidental to another activity, such as shopping. However, even where busking does take place at a location made available for that purpose, and is not incidental to other activities, it will not require a licence for an unamplified performance or to an audience of 200 people or less if it is an amplified performance at a workplace (which can include outside areas). ‘
There is no getting away from the fact that this approach runs completely counter to the arguments made duringt the LMA debates, that there are certain categories of music-making for which a pre-emptive licensing regime is neither necessary nor proportionate, because the potential for nuisance is low and noise nuisance legislation adequate to address any nuisance that might arise.
I hope you will support Jonny’s campaign and ensure that busking cannot be controlled in this draconian way.
As now a member of both the Musicians’ Union and Equity, after many years spent as a lawyer in a judicial capacity, I am convinced that the actions taken by Camden, and some other councils, attempting to restrict busking as a free form of street performance are legally flawed. I watched the video of the Committee Debate on the Camden Council website and was less than impressed by what I saw and heard. The Council seem to be leaping to legislate and, as is usual in such situations, the ensuing mess will be left to the Courts to clean up at great expense to taxpayers and a further burden on judicial resources.
“In all cultures and in all ages, the human
voice has been honored as the most
precious of all musical instruments,
and it has always been sustained by
rhythm. Practices which make use of
voice and rhythms together, especially
with movement, have always been a
powerful means of raising and deepening
consciousness beyond the habitual. They
allow us to play, to dance, to commune
with each other, to purify and renew
ourselves, and to heal. In our civilization,
we have mostly lost this art. We rarely
sing together and have lost a true sense
of our natural rhythm”
Sufism/Folklore and so on, but nothing to do with loudspeakers,microphones, equity or the musicians union.
Key words? WITH EACH OTHER. Not for profit.
Which in straight speak suggests, only buskers with means are allowed to make a few bob. Whilst those without can’t look for a feed themselves, as all they have is the ability to play a tune or recite a poem.
This is a disgusting way for a socialist council to move. The one way a poverty stricken person has to keep themselves alive is to be removed, And all the bull about he/she is not registered is simply another way to inflict a life of surveillance on us all. To remove this is the last vestige of freedom of expression. For it’s a man’s way of using his talents without having to be spotted or bank rolled by an agent or other fund raiser.
One of the heart warming sides of the ‘horror’ of tube travel is the buskers using the acoustics there to enhance their performance. And the medieval feel of Camden Town is what makes it so attractive. It being otherwise a cesspit. What lunatic control freak has come up with this notion?
Sad simpletons council officers. Why are they needed? Get rid of them. Leave them with only a busking activity to live by. And refuse them benefits. That should sort it out.
Rock and Rollers should gang up on these types in office. The big boys who can lean on em.
http://www.lordsdigitalchamber.co.uk
The Lords Digital Chamber launched this week.
I am sure you have investigated the case before putting your name to this petition but it would be unfair to ask the public on this site to sign up to a campaign that is necessarily a little one-sided.
Councils have a statutory duty to investigate complaints of noise nuisance. Each complaint is investigated by one or more professionally qualified Environmental Health Officers. Once their investigation is complete their findings will be the basis for any action that the council must make, one way or another. If one side is dissatisfied, they may take their case to the independent Local Government Ombudsman.
London councils have a number of restrictions in place for buskers. According to the Arts Council England*:
“Busking is prohibited in the entire borough of the City of London. The London Underground provides busking permits in tube stations, and many London boroughs allow busking by permit. The only borough in London permitting busking without a permit is Camden…”
Further, according to a legal information site**:
“In other places, such as Covent Garden Market, busking takes place by popular demand. Buskers have to apply for a busking licence and are then required to perform an audition. If the market likes the busker’s act, they will receive a licence, which must be displayed at all times when performing.”
According to The Independent, the licence will cost £19pa.***
Other information can be found in the listed articles.
* http://www.london-performers.co.uk/issue3/isstreetperformingillegal.html
** http://www.findlaw.co.uk/law/government/local_government/500586.html
*** http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/street-performers-mount-legal-challenge-against-camden-councils-decision-to-licence-busking-8957691.html
I am all in favor of licencing non acoustic music, ie amplified music,
probably contrary to Tony’s opinion above. I was a long time member of,
and I still am a keen supporter of unaccompanied acoustic music from the lowest street song to the highest form of musical opera, bit it has to be
acoustic.
It looks as though Camden has stuck to that essential definition of proper busking and many in Camden high street quite reasonably object to amplified music.
even where busking does take place at a location made available for that purpose, and is not incidental to other activities, it will not require a licence for an unamplified performance
That has enthusiasm for acoustic folk music written all over it.
Even if a powerful opera singer came along and sang as loudly as he could and much louder than some amplified music, there would still be no objection because it is ACOUSTIC.
The Musicians’ Union is all for royalties and performing rights, so any
advance towards that is what they want. So they must have licences to perform, and pay for them.
Quite right.
The acoustic folk singer, the traditional busker for centuries, does not get a look in otherwise, and they are the poverty stricken ones by comparison.
I hope i may add, without going too far off topic,that the arrival of Karaoke
(any thing foreign) in thse islands where the publican does pay the copyright fee at the end of the evening for everything played/ sung by his customers is an effective way round what has been a moribund folk scene for a good many years.
The Performing Rights guru, Geoff Gale, whom I know well, and who used to go round the Folk clubs checking up on them to make sure they were not evading royalties, did good amateur music no favours at all.
Karaoke, sing any song or play any tune as long as it is paid for, at the end of the evening, by the organiser, has been a good answer.
The EFDSS (English Folk Dance and Song society) of which Percy Granger and Vaughan Williams were the guiding lights and to whom VW gave all his archive, fought a rearguard action against such amplified people for a long time, but there now seems to be a very useful folk revival, a revival in the singing and playing of Acoustic music, in the street, which Camden Council is tacitly supporting! In the street! where better?!
The PRS attitude to street music would be that they should pay royalties
anywhere they play, especially if it is amplified, but would also like to see
the folkies paying up too. I am glad that Camden Council take the view that folkies, acoustic perfomers will do their best to stick to the acoustic repertoire, in time honoured fashion.
Geoff Gale would be delighted to go gather his nuts.
The licence fee should be for Camden Council to pay the royalty to the resepctive composers of the songs, but doing that would be rathe rdifficult unless there is a new Geoff Gale on the scene chasing round like a mad man
to check up on non payers.
Curiously enough he came out recently against M*nsanto’s seed patents.
Now that is totally inconsistent, but you tell me why. I know, but you tell me why!
On the issue of Camden Council/Police definitions of ‘extreme’ buskers including those who use ‘amplification’ I must say that I’ve never heard such petty-minded stupidity.
Luckily Birmingham my main street performance area does not have any such restrictions on amplification for any performer and its a policy that when well policed works just fine i.e. any ‘nuiscance’ performers, such as those who go into noise excess are quickly identified, told to turn down or moved on.
For this policy to work as well as it does in my home town is simply a matter of common-sense understanding and goodwill between police, performer and public and straightforward open and honest communication.
I play a type of nylon string classical guitar and without some form of amplification my type of act would be impossible. There are some ‘purists’ out there who site guitar legends such as Andre Segovia as never ever having used amplifcation in concert performance however my practical experience of playing on the streets teaches me that in this instance the Segovia approach is completely unrealistic I’d get drowned out by traffic, street cleaning vans, street crowds and all the superfluous urban din and noise of the city.
I pride myself in my role as a ‘walkbye’/cafe performer rather than ‘circle’ act with the emphasis on creation of beautiful mood and atmosphere rather than the common alternatives such as performing spectacle or putting on a show. Ironically its the ‘show-boating’ instruments ‘unamplified’ that I find reach the highest noise levels eg. sax, violin, bagpipes and brass played totally acoustically can in fact completely drown out an ‘amplified’ classical guitar.
Now I’m not saying it would be fairer to legislate against these ‘unamplified’ instruments on the grounds that in reality it is these that are louder than ‘amplified’ classical guitar. But what I am calling for is for police and council authorities to re-consider current attititudes as to the use of ‘reasonable’ amplification with a bona-fide act and to put in check their own presumptions about
what they call ‘extreme’ busking which for me are basically a set of prejudicial, well worn and ‘out-dated’ concepts that under closer examination prove quite ‘irrational’.
In managed areas, (not public highway, such as the estate at covent garden, carnaby street etc, the underground system and places which are private property) permission and restrictions are acceptable practice. On the public highway, which includes pavements, such restrictions are unnecessary and counter to various pieces of legislation, from the common law up to the EHCR. Attempts by Councils to ‘tidy up/sanitise’ the streets are unlawful. Where a particular problem needs to be addressed there are plenty of ways within the common law, to tackle any of the issues an inconsiderate busker may cause. Street performance is not illegal. It is protected as a reasonable activity, as is any reasonable activity which causes no harm, loss or injury. There is no need for such extraordinary powers to be sought, by any council that actually does it’s work correctly. The total disregard for fairness in the consultation document and the blanket dismissal of any communication to begin with and the pitiable allocation of 7 minutes for four major organisations to present their case at the council meeting on the 11th, speak of totalitarianism. The fact that not one labour councillor dared vote against the party, yet it was only them that voted for, says so much. Many of the small number of registered complaints did not site noise nuisance, just the very presence of a busker. most of the complaints come from the same very small number of people, who may not be so much inconvenienced by the activity, as much as they just do not agree with it in principle or understand it’s huge positives. Yours Sincerely, Steve Broe, Busker.
It’s about raising cash.
So why are they raising cash?
They public have had enough of taxes, so they are going for businesses, buskers, cars anything that moves or doesn’t move.
So why are they so short of cash?
its back to their debts. Massive.
And what do the lords do?
Carry on spending.
I don’t know what happened to the post I wrote yesterday, but, here we go again.
I see this as a form of registration and a lead up to taxation of the poverty stricken, on the assumption of income, rather than evidence of. Exactly as the USA does with waiters. They tax a waiter on the grounds that they ‘believe’ they receive tips, but, have no evidence of same tips. And the amount they tax is their entire pay. Yes, no exaggeration. A Waiter in the US gets approximately $2.50 an hour in real pay. The government withholds all of it as taxation on the assumption said waiter gets tipped more than covering their minimum pay level. Which is absolute nonsense.
Buskers being force to be licensed opens the door for this rip off. It is a deliberate act to impoverish further the impoverished. And it is forcing those with the least into a position of hardship. For, to make an impoverished busker pay for a license eliminates him from those who have the means to do this. In other words, those well able to afford to pay for licensing and registration, the well off buskers, will no longer have to compete with those who can barely maintain themselves in food as the right to perform, for them, will have been stripped away.
And this in a socialist borough! They should hang their heads in shame.
It is also another way of maintaining surveillance on the population. A free man can no longer remain free he must now be watched from cradle to grave, registered and stalked by the state. As, if he can make a meager living by performing a song, dancing a jig, reciting a poem or being a one man band, he will, God forbid, escape the tentacles of the all embracing government. Freedom is of the past in the real sense. Every day we grow closer to micro-chipping at birth. The same way my dog or a cat is. We have become akin to the slave mentality or the zoo keeper, farmer or circus animal. And it makes me physically sick to even contemplate what we have allowed ourselves to be roped into.
Buskers are a wonderful example of a free life. A pleasant voyage into our heritage of street performers of the past. A sense of wonder at the prospect of being a free spirit. And Camden cannot bear the thought of wandering, open travelers of this kind. Those not caught tightly in the tethering straps of a bit. They are control freaks of the worst kind and its time citizens refused this moronic bullying by not allowing themselves to submit to it.
Maude has repeated. I’ll repeat, but a bit different.
The two opposing sides ie left and right, the political sides
are the PRS and the EFDSS, both of which have lobbyists in parliamentary chambers, looking as if C-J is one.
PRS demands money from ALL live perfomances of somebody else’s copyrighted music.
EFDSS is the guardian of folk lore and acoustic music at street level.
(The ROH/ Nat Coliseum are the guardians of it, at the top end of the acoustic music market)
Attempts by Councils to ‘tidy up/sanitise’ the streets are unlawful.</ I would say quite the opposite from Steve Broe, that the sanitization specifically of the music and song, or even dance market ,is being expressly provided for by the new Camden council regs.
Sanitizing is getting ride of loud non acoustic synthetically accompanied music, and allowing Camdenites to enjoy folklore.
Blagger is right about money. It is about money, and if Camden council then pays the royalty fee with the licence money raised, for the songs and tunes that have been played, by ANY musician, then they are making proper use of their street space. It would be an achievement for them not to put it straight in to their own coffers.
I don’t know where the PRS/ Live music head offices are but the glorious EFDSS, to which you are all very welcome indeed, is just on the edge of
Regent’s park in the borough. Go listen to acoustic music, Billy Blagger included, or pay the royalty……. and if not satisfied with that then go Karaoke. Cecil Sharp House (EFDSS) named after the great collector of English and Appalachian music folk songs.
If the council could organize STREET KARAOKE, then everybody would be satisfied, but the chances of the money going to the composer or lyricist of the tune or song are remote indeed, and who would check on the tunes played????!!!
I can imagine the arguments:
“I wasn’t playing ‘She Loves you’!! ”
“Yes You were!”
“No I wasn’t! I was playing ‘she loves thee!’ and the words are different so I don’t have to pay the royalty fee!”
“Yes you do! the tune is the same so you have got to pay!”
No! I don’t!
Yes! you do!
Noise of fisticuffs off ,and police sirens getting rapidly closer!!!
How the pros organize it between themselves, I really don’t know,
but singing somebody else’s tune is usually entirely acceptable to the pop
star idol. It must be sing now; pay later.
So why the problem, Steve Broe and C-J ,on the street??
The council voted by 26 to 17 on Monday evening to adopt a section of the London Local Authorities Act 2000 enabling the council to licence busking.
Now lets take a look at the control freaks behind this lark, and the real reason they want to remove freedom from those who are down and out to make a crust freely.
The money behind this sentiment thinks they are on the way to finding the route to Simon Cowells millions.
All you have to do is follow the money when anything like these matters arise and you realise at once its a con to exploit the vulnerable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RN5MvrrDTs
Those who voted this through are shills.
The PRS/Live Music/Musicians union may well say that with speaker technology bveing so advanced that any man may have a micro-speaker at the back of his ear playing the tunes in such a way that all he has to do is ape them, that the day of ‘remembered’ folk lore has gone forever, and probably ended with Granger, Cecil sharp and Vaughan Williams.
However there are still some illiterate people who do their best to stick to the folklorice traditions and they shuld be properly recognised as non-professional.
Although the Musicians union is part of the labour movement
it is still poles apart from the true radical folklore singer, who only expects a fee for the work done, and not afee every time his tune is played.
The argument ran to the European courts at great coast once
digital tech had been sorted. I accept now that iTunes has
a technology is second to none, nor do I resent the huge fortune that such as the Howell family friend, Katie Mellua, has amassed with a number of bicycles. You have gotta laugh
about the vast profits that such imagination and business skill
engenders. She is, all the way to the bank and her true love.
In the words of the Olde song “Money can’t buy you love!” and in the context of Camden high street it can hopefully buy you a little peace and acoustic quietness!
I used to be a Socialist until I realised that the ‘left-wing’ middle class expected the working class to live ‘spartan’ lives while they themselves drank champagne and took holidays in Provence.
Today in the year 2014 theres still a ‘darker’ storm brewing, a ‘legislative’ spectre set to haunt and cast its terrifying shadow over all the Street Performers in the UK ( I can feel it in my bones! and I shudder to think!!!…. )