Letter to BBC: Bring back classical music downloads!

The BBC has decided that classical music is too popular to be given away for free to the people who pay for the BBC.

Last June, the BBC posted every Beethoven symphony as a free MP3 download, to great success. Britons downloaded the tracks, discovered new love for classical music, and got good value for the money they give the BBC every year.

The classical music labels can't see past the loss of a few CD sales to the greater value of revitalizing and mainstreaming love of symphonic music, nor do they seem to care about the Beeb's remit to deliver public value. They complained bitterly about the BBC giving away classical music to a hungry audience that demanded it.

The BBC has caved and is abandoning this runaway success. Britons' license fees will not be spent to give them the media they desire.

Rufus Pollock has written an open letter to the BBC taking it to task for this dereliction of duty. You can email him to add your name to the letter.

Classical music is an essential, and highly valued, part of our culture and we find it entirely inappropriate that access should be restricted on narrow, and mistaken, ‘commercial’ grounds. The benefit to us, as individuals and as a society, of greater access to these works greatly outweigh any costs. Thus we formally request that the BBC repeat the policy adopted during its Beethoven-week both for Bach and future seasons by providing free online downloads of the material wherever it is able to. We believe that it is only in this way that the BBC can fully live up to its mission as a public service broadcaster.

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