Comments on: Surface Unsigned Festival Addendum

By: Created in Birmingham » Collective Memory - the Surface Unsigned Debacle

Created in Birmingham » Collective Memory - the Surface Unsigned Debacle — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:49:10 +0000

[…] After a weekend of checking that CiB had done nothing wrong, the original post was amended and an addendum was […]

By: Pete Green

Pete Green — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:50:47 +0000

CiB is doing a great service to Birmingham and to music by bringing this to people’s attention. Good on you.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:59:59 +0000

I’m in

By: Dave Harte

Dave Harte — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:36:04 +0000

How comes everyone gets lovely trackback things showing but I don’t. The internet’s a mystery to me sometimes.

Anyway - just to note I’ve written about this at the Birmingham Post (with a copy on my own blog)

Dave

By: Andy Mabbett

Andy Mabbett — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:07:55 +0000

FYI:

http://forums.mirror.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=1219580#1219580

By: Stef Lewandowski » “Surface Unsigned” - How not to score a PR own goal when criticised online

Tue, 20 May 2008 13:16:16 +0000

[…] A blog post had gone up on Created in Birmingham saying something about an organisation called Surface Unsigned that they didn’t agree with. […]

By: catnip

catnip — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:51:57 +0000

Another thing that concerns me about this is how they handle the text voting (details on the banner at the bottom of the http://www.surfaceunsigned.co.uk/presspage.html). If a band does not qualify by not bringing 25 fans, what happens to any text votes for that band? Voters have to pay £1 plus network fee for each vote. Is this announced at the end of the gig before voting starts “You can vote for BandA, BandC and BandD, but not BandB”. This seems unlikely.

By: CatherineBray

CatherineBray — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:10:06 +0000

And now, courtesy Stuart Fowkes over at Oxfordbands:

http://www.oxfordbands.com/2008/05/19/pay-to-play/

Is that the first outside-Brum post?

By: Andy Mabbett

Andy Mabbett — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:57:02 +0000

More here, too:

http://www.uksponsorship.com/a941.htm

By: Andy Mabbett

Andy Mabbett — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:51:34 +0000

Updated my post:

http://pigsonthewing.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/suface-unsigned-to-be-avoided/

The person behind Surface Unsigned is involved in another event which openly advertsies similar conditions.

By: CatherineBray

CatherineBray — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:48:17 +0000

Me too, me too!

Surface Unsigned hire Lionel Hutz

By: Suface Unsigned: to be avoided « Mabblog

Suface Unsigned: to be avoided « Mabblog — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:37:12 +0000

[…] that Surafce Unsigend have tried to stifle reasonable criiticism made on Created in Birmingham, by threatening legal action on what appear to be spurious […]

By: Andy Mabbett

Andy Mabbett — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:36:39 +0000

Blogged: http://pigsonthewing.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/suface-unsigned-to-be-avoided/

Let’s all make sure that this page is added to magnolia, Digg, Delicious etc.; and tagged with surface-unsigned

By: Surface Unsigned: Not Welcome Here « Mabblog

Surface Unsigned: Not Welcome Here « Mabblog — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:35:55 +0000

[…] that Surafce Unsigend have tried to stifle reasonable criiticism made on Created in Birmingham, by threatening legal action on what appear to be spurious […]

By: simon gray

simon gray — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:49:09 +0000

i notice there is no real-world contact information on the surface website anywhere. is that not mandatory these days for businesses ?

By: simon gray

simon gray — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:08:46 +0000

linked to from the top of birmingham alive! (josh & jonny - fancy doing the same thing on your sites ?), & also blogged about on my personal blog & the stirrer forum.

By: Russ L

Russ L — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:26:10 +0000

Linked from my end.

By: keri davies

keri davies — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:43:27 +0000

This legal threat is highly spurious for several reasons.

1. I can’t find the “festival’s” terms and conditions, but I expect they are much longer than this one paragraph. Copyright law only applies when you quote a “substantial part” of a work.

2. Even if this was the entire terms and conditions, there is a very strong defence case for this being fair comment on a matter of public interest.

3. So copyright doesn’t come into it.

4. Even if Surface has a non-disclosure agreement with the bands taking part, there is no such contractual relationship between Surface and CiB.

What an own goal by Surface. Instead of engaging with the issue, explaining what the money is used for, how much it costs to administer the competition, pointing to the success stories large and small of bands who have taken part, they are now going to be branded as exploitative cowards who don’t understand the blogosphere or the law.

By: Pete Ashton

Pete Ashton — Sun, 18 May 2008 23:25:47 +0000

And here is my take on the matter.

By: Danny Smith

Danny Smith — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:59:56 +0000

and here is my personal take on it (probably NSFW)

By: Created in Birmingham » Surface Unsigned

Created in Birmingham » Surface Unsigned — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:29:24 +0000

[…] Note: We had previously reprinted verbatim an excerpt of the terms and conditions. Surface have requ… […]