Okay, this is a
little bit of a rant... (
not at Peter, really!)
The trouble is that Andrew now knows how to proceed - getting permission as required etc - but at the time of the 'bust' he hadn't done that, or of course even known that such a procedure was either necessary or possible. It could of course be argued that the 'gentlemen' who leaned on him were less than helpful in not pointing out how it's possible to proceed legally, but that makes less of a good news story.
Unfortunately, ignorance is
not a privilege in English law... but I got the impression that this bust was made precisely because the BPI presumed (without checking themselves) that he
wouldn't get permission if he asked - which is clearly
not the case. Okay, neither party was absolutely in the right, but I still think that Andrew has the moral high ground here.
I think Andrew's revenge should come through promulgating the way to frustrate the Trading Standards people (as he has done here), which in essence means pointing out to others how they can stay on the right side of the law which is an activity which they can hardly feel upset about, rather than getting frontally up their noses with complaints about their visit, which is likely to result in even closer scruitiny of everything that he even thinks of doing, and ending up with even more hassles. These people have some remarkably wide powers and widespread contacts!
I will respectfully have to disagree with this. You don't take it lying down at all - that's precisely what they want you to do. The BPI
don't have any powers to speak of - they need warrants, just like anybody else, and if they have acted in a high-handed manner without checking all of the facts properly, then they should be publically held to account for it. If they had obtained a warrant under these circumstances, when the likelihood was that the record company wouldn't have prosecuted
anyway, then the issuing magistrate would
certainly have had a few things to say about it!
The Trading Standards officers are public servants, and we have a right to expect them to act impartially when they are called in. It's quite clear that they believed exactly what the BPI told them, without any sort of checking at all. I can't see any reason at all for them not being taken publically to task. If anything, it's more likely to keep them on their toes. Without exception they are overworked - there's no way they were volunteering for this job, and they won't want to go back,
especially if they think it's likely to blow up in their faces. No, you warn them off.
But in fairness, it's really the BPI who should be hoisted. Their whole system is slewed heavily in favour of their larger members, and every action they take of this nature is petty. It's quite clear that they regarded Andrew as a soft target that they could frighten, and absolutely the
last thing you want to do in this situation is roll over and die. Andrew did what they said, and found out that they were talking absolute rubbish. Why
shouldn't he take a crack at them?
You don't get cross - you get
even. How did it go in Crocodile Dundee? "Christ, that kangaroo's got a
gun!" (best line in the film IMHO!)
I think that it may well be worth getting this particular flame to breathe the oxygen of publicity. It is unfortunately the case that if you want any media attention for something like this, it has to be sensational - and it only takes one big breaking story for it to get lost without trace. So you need a campaign - you don't put all your eggs in one basket, but even that's fraught with difficulty. Certainly you wise people up to the situation - but this will hack the record companies off a treat, because of all the requests they will get, and they will start thinking about the BPI...
The only good news is that at this point, the BPI will be forced to use a scheme like the ARIA one that WT mentioned, which is there to do precisely what Andrew wants. But for the backward-looking BPI to do something like this, the impetus would
have to come from their members. And the BPI won't like it, because they won't be making any money from it. They are not there to look after the needs of Andrew, after all - they've made it
quite clear that their attitude is that they're out to frustrate him.
So I could see this getting a little messy...
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