Making Live 8 pay
Live 8 - who pays?
The list of acts signed up by Bob Geldof looks pretty good, thats if you can ignore the now distinct possibility of the Spice Girls reappearing. But many like Pink Floyd are saying that world poverty is more important than the arguments between members of the band. So what are all these superstars contributing? An evening of their time for free? Well big deal, on the list are people such as Paul McCartney, Elton John and Stevie Wonder all with personal fortunes that are bigger than the total GDP of many African countries.
All, along with Bono, Sting and others are making noises about putting an end to world poverty. So I have a question for Bob Geldof, why not ask all these stars with so much free time to give just what donation they are making. Better still perhaps they should all be paying an appearance fee as their personal commitment to ending poverty. Yes pressure the G8 to change the rules, drop trade barriers, write off existing debts but we all ready know that much of the G8 agenda and Blairs big plan for Africa is about opening up markets and letting in multinationals to exploit remaining natural resources across the continent.
So, with five venues and over 60 top line acts performing what about them paying to entertain the millions who buy their music? What about them paying, say, $20,000 each (small beer for the vast majority of those appearing - ask David Rovics how much he is being paid for appearing in Edinburgh at the G8 protest, zilch) that would total over $1.2 million and, back that up with 1% of all royalties over the next five years - now that would be a commitment to ending world poverty and what an incentive to the record buying public to know that each time they buy music over the next five years they are making a continuing contribution.
But we already know that this will not happen but then Martin Luther King told us about having dreams.
The list of acts signed up by Bob Geldof looks pretty good, thats if you can ignore the now distinct possibility of the Spice Girls reappearing. But many like Pink Floyd are saying that world poverty is more important than the arguments between members of the band. So what are all these superstars contributing? An evening of their time for free? Well big deal, on the list are people such as Paul McCartney, Elton John and Stevie Wonder all with personal fortunes that are bigger than the total GDP of many African countries.
All, along with Bono, Sting and others are making noises about putting an end to world poverty. So I have a question for Bob Geldof, why not ask all these stars with so much free time to give just what donation they are making. Better still perhaps they should all be paying an appearance fee as their personal commitment to ending poverty. Yes pressure the G8 to change the rules, drop trade barriers, write off existing debts but we all ready know that much of the G8 agenda and Blairs big plan for Africa is about opening up markets and letting in multinationals to exploit remaining natural resources across the continent.
So, with five venues and over 60 top line acts performing what about them paying to entertain the millions who buy their music? What about them paying, say, $20,000 each (small beer for the vast majority of those appearing - ask David Rovics how much he is being paid for appearing in Edinburgh at the G8 protest, zilch) that would total over $1.2 million and, back that up with 1% of all royalties over the next five years - now that would be a commitment to ending world poverty and what an incentive to the record buying public to know that each time they buy music over the next five years they are making a continuing contribution.
But we already know that this will not happen but then Martin Luther King told us about having dreams.
posted by Red and Green at 9:53 AM
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