Music News

US death metal band Cannibal Corpse has wound up religious activists ahead of concerts in Russia.

A group called God's Will has had a knock at Cannibal Corpse with leader Dmitry Tsorionov (Enteo) whingeing:

We send mass requests to the prosecutor, the description of what is happening at the concerts of the group, the texts of their songs, which are described in detail in the rape and murder of children.

The Orthodox Union also seeks to ban Cannibal Corpse from playing in Russia. Chairman Roman Pluta wailed:

We seek to ban concerts Cannibal Corpse in Russia. Their work is fully covered by the composition of the crime under the articles of the Criminal Code, for fueling religious hatred, promoting exclusivity, superiority or inferiority of citizens on the basis of their religion.

Cannibal Corpse will be in Russia for a total of eight shows from Oct. 2nd-12th.

David Cameron and his bunch of miserablist hangers-on will be well unpleased as their bête noir, Miley Cyrus, was among the winners at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards in California.

Miley Cyrus won the Video of the Year award for Wrecking Ball , which according to PC extremists has 'sexualised' and 'harmed' anyone who watches it.  And it's one hell of a lot of 'harm' as the video has now been watched 699,008,259 times on YouTube alone.

The new law modifies section 2 of the Video Records Act to become something like:

Section 2: Exempted Works

(1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3) below, a video work is for the purposes of this Act an exempted work if, taken as a whole--

(a) it is designed to inform, educate or instruct;

(b) it is concerned with sport, religion or music; or

(c) it is a video game.

(2) A video work other than a video game is not an exempted work for those purposes if it does one or more of the following:

(a) it depicts or promotes violence or threats of violence;

(b) it depicts the immediate aftermath of violence on human or animal characters;

(c) it depicts an imitable dangerous activity without also depicting that the activity may endanger the welfare or health of a human or animal character;

(d) it promotes an imitable dangerous activity;

(e) it depicts or promotes activities involving illegal drugs or the misuse of drugs;

(f) it promotes the use of alcohol or tobacco;

(g) it depicts or promotes suicide or attempted suicide, or depicts the immediate aftermath of such an event;

(h) it depicts or promotes any act of scarification or mutilation of a person, or of selfharm, or depicts the immediate aftermath of such an act;

(i) it depicts techniques likely to be useful in the commission of offences or, through its depiction of criminal activity, promotes the commission of offences;

(j) it includes words or images intended or likely to convey a sexual message (ignoring words or images depicting any mild sexual behaviour);

(k) it depicts human sexual activity (ignoring any depictions of mild sexual activity);

(l) it depicts or promotes acts of force or restraint associated with human sexual activity;

(m) it depicts human genital organs or human urinary or excretory functions (unless the depiction is for a medical, scientific or educational purpose);

(n) it includes swearing (ignoring any mild bad language); or

(o) it includes words or images that are intended or likely (to any extent) to cause offence, whether on the grounds of race, gender, disability, religion or belief or sexual orientation, or otherwise.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (2):

A video work promotes something if the work is likely (to any extent) to stimulate or encourage that thing.

Human or animal character means a character that is or whose appearance is similar to that of:

(a) a human being, or
(b) an animal that exists or has existed in real life, but does not include a simple stick character or any equally basic representation of a human being or animal;

Imitable dangerous activity means an activity which:

(a) if imitated by a person, may endanger the welfare or health of any person or animal, and
(b) may be easily imitated by a person; and violence does not include any violence that is:

(a) mild, or
(b) not directed towards human or animal characters, unless it is sexual violence. .

Note: the original definition of an exempted work is retained for video games.

The Dominican Republic government commission that oversees public performances is banning a Sept. 13 concert by Miley Cyrus on morality grounds.

The commission said in a statement that it took the action because Cyrus often:

Undertakes acts that go against morals and customs, which are punishable by Dominican law.

Meanwhile Moralist campaigners in New Zealand claim that Miley Cyrus' show is porn and the promotion of substance abuse dressed up as pop music. The singer is set to play an Auckland show in October.

Family First's Bob McCroskrie hyped the show saying that reviews of the Bangerz tour indicated that it featured foul language, highly sexualised imagery, and normalised drug use. He suggested:

Parents should save their money, protect their children and expose them to the far more positive messages of celebrating their achievements, their personality and their uniqueness.

But Cyrus has hit out at the whingers, saying her show is empowering and brings happiness to her fans.

The Guardian seems to have been the only source that I have spotted that actually tries to explain what will be going on:

Music videos will go through the same classification system as films and other video content. The voluntary pilot will involve the big three music labels in the UK, Sony, Universal and Warner Music, as well as the BBFC, YouTube and music video platform Vevo. The pilot will run for three months, kicking off in October.

It is presumably related that  music videos sold or distributed on disc or other physical form and deemed to include 12-rated-plus material will have to go through the age-classification process also starting in October under amendments to the Video Recording Act. The music labels will submit music videos that they consider could contain content that should be classified as for age 12 or over, using BBFC guidelines. The BBFC will then rate the videos as it does with other content, for which the labels will pay a fee to cover the cost of rating in the same way that the film industry currently does. The rating process should take around 24 hours, according to the BBFC. A rating of 12, 15 or 18 will be assigned to the music video and passed on to the label. Videos deemed not to include unsuitable content for children under 12 will not be classified.

The pilot scheme announced by Cameron will only cover music videos and will not be expanded to cover other video content on sites such as YouTube.

The music labels will tag the video with the age rating from the BBFC when uploading the video to hosting services. YouTube and Vevo are part of the pilot study, and will be supporting the ratings, placing a visible age rating on the video title on the respective sites.

The visible rating will probably take the form of the BBFC's age certification logos, although that is not yet set in stone, and is intended to give parents more information about the videos their children are watching.

YouTube has a similar system for displaying BBFC ratings on films, and requires users to be at least 13 years old to have an account, although most videos are viewable without an account.

The three-month pilot is intended to finalise a system that works for rating the videos and having the data tagged to them when uploaded to say they are classified. For the initial trial it will simply be a notification on the video of an age classification.

After the three-month trial it is expected that YouTube and Vevo, as well as other video hosting services, will look at developing parental control filters that screen out videos marked as inappropriate for children of specific age ranges.

Only new videos submitted by the music labels will be rated during the pilot, although there will be a decision at the end of the pilot as to whether videos that are already available should be retroactively classified.

The big three labels will conduct the pilot, but the BPI, which represents Sony, Universal and Warner Music and more than 300 independent music companies, expects that all music labels will adopt the system once finalised.

During the pilot the ratings will be there for information purposes only, to help parents make an informed decision. Parental controls on YouTube and others could be used to screen out videos via ratings, but their effectiveness will be determined by how difficult it is to get around age verification.

YouTube, like most other online services, does not verify a user's age beyond the date of birth given by the user at the point of signing up for an account. Age verification issues are beyond the scope of this initial pilot scheme.

Comment: Will other countries follow suit?

19th August 2014. See article from bbc.co.uk

Newsbeat spoke to Gennaro Castaldo from the BPI and asked if the pilot will have any impact if music videos by American artists, known for being racier, aren't certified?

Yes it's true that a lot of music video content comes from outside the UK, but also a huge amount of music that sells well around the world does come from Britain and from British artists.

So I think, what we do in this country is followed by other territories. So I'm sure they'll be following our pilot with interest and in due course I think they'll then decide how they want to act on that.

I think this is a really good place to start, we have to start somewhere and if we can begin here in the UK, for other territories to follow, then I think that would be a really good example too.

Music videos should be age rated in the same way as feature films and video games because of supposedly endemic sexism and racism, according to miserablist women's groups.

Campaign literature criticises videos by Calvin Harris, Basement Jaxx, Robin Thicke and Miley Cyrus for misogynistic depictions of women. It also claims rap videos, in particular, were guilty of presenting women in a sexist way, often as commodities and sex objects. Black women were subjected to racist treatment by being commonly portrayed as hypersexual , invoking ideas of black women as wild and animalistic .

Sarah Green, of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, called on the Government to introduce age ratings:

Some forms of media, such as television and film, are well regulated and our society accepts and supports this. Other forms like music videos are getting away with very little scrutiny and as such seem to be competing for who can most degrade and insult women.

If the 'creative' people who make them won't stop this, regulators should rein them in and implement age ratings. More than 18,000 people have signed a petition calling for this.

A leading music website has censored album covers by artists including Sigur Rós and Lambchop after they fell foul of a Google advertising ban on supposedly sexually explicit content.

Drowned in Sound (DiS) was told that the covers, which include scenes of uncontroversial nudity, could no longer be shown on web pages which sit alongside Google's Adsense advertising network.

The website relies upon income from Google's advertising system and so has had to cover up the offending artworks. DiS was told that it would be blocked from accessing Google's advertising network within days if it failed to comply.

Sean Adams, who founded DiS in 2000, said that it seems crazy that they feel they can police our editorial and questioned whether Google might one day seek the removal of material which could seriously compromise freedom of expression.

The cover of Sigur Rós' 2008 album, Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust , which features naked buttocks, incorporates an image by the acclaimed American photographer, Ryan McGinley.

Another offending cover, OH (Ohio) by Lambchop, features a painting called New Orleans Police Beating by Michael Peed. Its image of naked lovers is designed to contrast scenes of intimacy with violence outside.

Google is seeking to distance itself from the porn industry. The warning to DiS seems to have been caught up in a recent Google move to ban adverts that promote graphic depictions of sexual acts.