In April hundreds of people were killed and tens of thousands left homeless after an earthquake hit L’Aquila in Italy.
The ongoing effort to help those affected is huge and includes various fund-raising events. One of those is a collaboration of 56 artists and musicians who came together to record a song entitled “Domani 21/4.09″ (Tomorrow 21/4.09). Recorded over three days, the proceeds of the 6 minute song will go to helping the victims of the quake. There can be little doubt, considering the already-massive effort underway to help those affected, that the song will sell as quickly as it can be put into stores and that the result will be that much-needed funds will reach those that need it most. However, elements of the Italian music industry simply couldn’t resist getting in a strike against P2P, when the opportunity arose to do so. People who want to give to charity and help a good cause, do so. Those that don’t want to give have made their choice too but of course there is clearly some propaganda value in claiming otherwise. We’ve all heard the untruth “one download equals one lost sale” but this is probably the first time i’ve heard “one download equals one less donation to charity”. “There are thousands of copies of the song and video made available on P2P networks with tens of thousands of illegal downloads every day,” the secretary general of Federation Against Music Piracy, Luca Vespignani. In an attempt at escalation, Vespignani says he has reported the situation to Italy’s Guardia di Finanza. “In this case, the damage goes beyond just music piracy, it is damaging a charity,” he said. Juanma López Fenoy is a very sick young man who suffers from a degenerative brain disease called Alexander Syndrome. In order to raise money so that Juanma can go to the US to receive treatment, a charity concert was organized, with artists waiving their fees to perform. The concert took place April 25 and raised €56,000 ($75,000) through ticket sales. SGAE issued a statement, that although it would still take its 10%, it would make an equivalent voluntary donation back to the fund, effectively canceling it out.
SGAE can suck my downloading dick, they ain’t getting a fcking centimo from me