"Fair Play" Tour
with 3 on the Bund, Eva Coyle & Friends, ReelRhythm and Tom Byrne as well as Festival Session
The current tour name "Fair Play" is excitingly ambiguous. In Irish slang, it stands for "well done" or "bravo". Respecting the rules of the game is the other meaning. This year, the IFF wants to bring into the discussion and political arena the fact that the good old rules of the music world are increasingly being suspended. What is it about?
Sales of recorded music have fallen dramatically in recent years due to the digital business. More and more music is only being purchased via streaming or download, which means that those who have invested all the costs, all the risk, creativity and huge amounts of work in recordings are getting less than 10% of the sales. The multinational corporations and their streaming services pocket more than 90%. Even the most loyal fans are often not really aware of this problem and prefer streaming to buying a CD. However, this means that the artists have hardly any income left. Not just to live on, but also to put something aside to finance new recordings. You can already see that there are fewer and fewer new releases. This is a stagnation of evolution, regardless of the style of music. Our culture is getting poorer and Apple, Spotify and the like are getting richer.
Ireland has a vibrant tradition of rebel songs that demand freedom and justice. So we are in a good tradition when we oppose new forms of exploitation. The new feudal lords are no longer the English, but the streaming services. The IFF demands more justice and fairness in the music industry. Without pressure from the streets, neither our politicians in Berlin nor Brussels will do anything about this music theft in the near future. The fight against multinational corporations can only be waged globally. In this divided world, this will take years. But we as consumers can make an immediate difference by not buying online. With our tour, we want to draw attention to the remuneration models of the major streaming providers and campaign for a world of music that is fair. We hope that our cause will be well received and that as many people as possible will take a stand against this injustice. As long as there are no fair streaming models, we would like to see more records being sold again. And the fact is: the fan-artist encounter at the merchandising table is simply part of the concert experience!
We are setting off on our tour in the hope that the media and audience will express their solidarity with us in the form of "fair play" in the sense of an appreciative pat on the back.
© Magnetic Music Publishing 2023
