Björn talked about the agreement between WIPO and MRAF to Collaborate in Favor of Creators

Björn talked about the agreement between WIPO and MRAF to Collaborate in Favor of Creators -






WIPO and Music Rights Awareness Foundation to Collaborate in Favor of Creators
Geneva/Orebro, August 10, 2020

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Music Rights Awareness Foundation (MRAF) have joined forces to support creators around the world in ensuring they are recognized and fairly remunerated for their work by increasing knowledge and awareness of their intellectual property (IP) rights.

Video: Mr. Gurry and Mr. Ulvaeus highlight the significance of the new agreement.
An agreement signed by WIPO Director General Francis Gurry and MRAF Co-Founders Björn Ulvaeus, Niclas Molinder and Max Martin, establishes a Consortium that will initiate activities to raise awareness of IP rights for creators around the world. The Charter PDF, Charter of WIPO for Creators for the WIPO for Creators consortium sets the conditions of participation by interested parties, which is open to both members and sponsors from the public or private sectors.

“This agreement is of critical importance to creators as it unites the expertise of two organizations with very specific mandates in helping creators the world over to monetize their creations,” Mr. Gurry said. “The current COVID-19 crisis has reinforced the importance of the creative industries in society and the need to ensure that creators are justly remunerated for their work – this can only happen through an effective copyright system that provides both the incentives and the rewards for the creative process in an increasingly global and interconnected digital content marketplace.”

ABBA star Björn Ulvaeus welcomed the agreement with WIPO noting “I am grateful and proud that WIPO is supporting this endeavor and that we will work together to raise awareness and increase knowledge of intellectual property rights for creators worldwide through education and support programs. We are delighted that under our partnership with WIPO, we now have a forum for realizing this vision together with all interested and willing partners from the public and private sector.”

Songwriter and producer Niclas Molinder who is also Chair of the MRAF welcomed the collaboration with WIPO and the public-private sector partnership in the form of a consortium, noting “This new collaboration is an important step forward in improving the situation of creators. The purpose of "WIPO for Creators” is to educate and raise awareness about fundamental IP rights so that creators the world over can be properly compensated and credited when their work is used. I am really looking forward to working with WIPO on achieving this common goal.”

This initiative is particularly significant as the creative content marketplace has become increasingly complex and data-driven. It therefore becomes more important for creators to understand the crucial role of data management in order to effectively exercise their intellectual property rights.
www.wipo.int/pressroom


https://www.facebook.com/abbaregistro/posts/1215851815429967

The classic Sex Pistols song inspired by ABBA’s pop smash ‘SOS’

 Notes- articles

Jack Whatley·August 7, 2020

The classic Sex Pistols song inspired by ABBA’s pop smash ‘SOS’

t may seem a bit odd to hear the two bands ABBA and the Sex Pistols in the same breath but their connection is stronger than you think. Original bassist, and one-time principal songwriter of the Pistols, Glen Matlock, was a huge fan of the pop royalty.

He was such a fan, in fact, that he lifted a bass line straight from one of ABBA’s most recognisable songs, ‘SOS’ and placed it in one of the Sex Pistols ultimate punk anthems. It’s a little known fact that may make your punk friend want to pull out his safety pins.

‘Pretty Vacant’ may well be one of punk’s finest anthems but the song’s classic riff is taken straight from ABBA’s chest of pop smashes. Matlock is said to have been a fan of the band from Sweden who, at the time, were one of the biggest pop artists around, churning out chart-topping hits and generally operating as the antithesis of punk—before punk was even punk.

Revisiting the song’s origination with Rolling Stone, Matlock reflected on how the track came about and while it was inspired by the ABBA riff, the song’s original conception was influenced by the States. “Malcolm McLaren had been going back and forth to the States to be involved in the rag trade and buy old Fifties clothes because he had a Teddy Boy shop, and I knew he ran into Sylvain Sylvain from the New York Dolls and went backstage,” he said.

“Malcolm came back with fliers for the shows and he brought back setlists, but none of these bands had made records at that stage,” recalled Matlock of the influence the New York set had on him and the rest of the Pistols.

“One said ‘Blank Generation’, and that got me thinking about how there was nothing going on in London,” the bassist continues. “There was a real air of despondency and desperation, so I came out with the idea of ‘Pretty Vacant.'”

As you might imagine the large majority of the song was already composed before Matlock heard the ABBA song in question, but it did add a flourish to the song which it desperately needed. “I had the set of chord changes and the lyric but I was short of a riff,” recalls Matlock.

“I knew it needed a melodic thing, and I heard something on a record by a band called ABBA and it inspired the riff I needed, and I said, ‘Guys, I’ve got it.'” The riff he heard was taken from the band’s song ‘SOS’, which featured on ABBA’s musical film Mamma Mia with Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep providing the vocals in that performance. Not quite the punk image you’d expect and far away from Johnny Rotten’s razor vocal.

It’s likely not something Matlock is ever too happy to talk about in great depth but he has on occasion shown his love for the band, sometimes trying to incriminate his bandmates too. “I always got quite a bit of stick for liking ABBA,” Matlock told The Mouth, “but I think as pop songwriters they’re fantastic. I mean, if you listen to the drums on ‘Waterloo’ it could be Paul [Cook] playing it… I think perhaps he’d picked up a bit, subconsciously, on that.”

However odd it may be to think of one of punk’s most well-known songs being inspired by the ultimate anti-punks ABBA, it did at least provide Sex Pistols bassist, Matlock, an unusual pen pal for a while, the musician recalled in RS, “I mentioned the ABBA influence in an interview once and the bass player from ABBA somehow got my address and started sending me Christmas cards for about 10 years.”

Listen to both of the songs below and see if you can hear the resemblance.

Pretty Vacant https://youtu.be/R6GDdKrQ8EI

SOS https://youtu.be/cvChjHcABPA

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/sex-pistols-song-inspired.../

My life: Bjorn Ulvaeus

My life: Bjorn Ulvaeus






Magazines / Post Magazine
One of the two men who put the Bs into Abba talks to Tom Cassidy about the Swedish pop sensation and the secrets of the Mamma Mia! stage show's success.
TOM CASSIDY
Published: 9:15am, 21 Sep, 2014

TAKE A CHANCE ON ME We (Benny Andersson and Ulvaeus) started off as friends. We had the same interest, writing songs, so we started doing that, but the friendship was the most important thing. As the years went by, we became almost like brothers. We always wanted to write that wonderful, great melody and if we could do that better together, then so be it. When a song became a hit, that was just lucky. Out of 12 songs on an album, not every one was hit material but a few were and we were just lucky that people had the same taste as we did.
THE WINNERS TAKE IT ALL After we'd won (the Eurovision Song Contest) with Waterloo in 1974, we had not only artistic freedom but financial freedom and there was no one breathing down our necks any more. The record company would say, "You have to be ready by this or that time," and we didn't say, "F*** you," but we said, "No, it's ready when it's ready." The creative side of it was on our terms completely.
THEY HAD A DREAM We stuck to an idea and a dream that we had. We found that we could be the people who were writing really good pop songs. In the same way as The Beatles, we wanted every album to be a step forward in our development and I think we achieved that. And then when we felt finally that we didn't have as much fun in the studio anymore, that there was something missing, we said, "OK, let's do nothing for a while." And that's what we did. I thought we'd hear the occasional (Abba) song, but more or less we'd be forgotten. This is the most fantastic thing of all, that you and I are speaking here today.
THE SONGS WE'RE SINGING I rarely put on an Abba CD. When I turn on the radio and something (we wrote) is played, I listen. That's mostly how I hear (Abba's music). With a few exceptions, from the beginning, it sounds surprisingly fresh. I think that's because we were such perfectionists in the studio - the final mix is the best we could achieve at that time with the equipment we had. In the 70s, recording studios had such better equipment than in the 60s and that's why 60s records sound the way they do. From the 70s onwards they could be from any decade.
THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC Music is universal. You can strike a chord with someone in the deepest jungle in Africa. Having written something way up north, in Sweden, you can still strike a chord anywhere in the world if the music speaks to you. And I think the sound of the two girls (Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Faltskog) together, the voices have a kind of exuberant, uplifting quality and it speaks to the whole world.
FEELING LIKE A NUMBER ONE (The paparazzi are) much, much worse today. It's an incredible difference. They more or less let us be. We were, as two couples, not really interesting - we had more trouble with (the media) after the divorce. I was a bachelor for one week - I got straight into a relationship, which has lasted to this day, so I was boring - but Agnetha was very interesting to the press.
KNOWING ME KNOWING YOU I like the space (in Sweden). We only have 9.5 million people in the whole country; in Stockholm there's only about 900,000. It's manageable. You're not queuing wherever you go. It's the most beautiful capital city in the world. It's surrounded by water and it's got everything I need. Stockholm is buzzing with creativity. Technology is at the forefront. Spotify is from Sweden, Skype is from Sweden, so there's a lot of that going on. These days, producers and songwriters from Sweden have incredible success around the world. We are per capita the No2 music exporting nation in the world, even above the UK. People say Abba started it all.
MASTERS OF THE SCENE In the 80s, television producer Judy Craymer said she would like to produce a special hour based on Abba songs with a new story. I said, "Yes, if you can find someone who can write a script that I can say yes to." There were several scripts but nothing was good. We started discussing if maybe we could do one of those family shows that the Brits have over Christmas. When Judy introduced ( Mamma Mia! scriptwriter) Catherine Johnson to me, the idea came of a fully fledged musical. I said, "You cannot change the lyrics but you can choose any of the songs that are from the catalogue." You don't have to use just the hits. A lot of the songs have hidden stories within them. Catherine said that is why Mamma Mia! works so well, because she could take those little stories, put them in another situation and it still would work. There have been so many jukebox musicals after Mamma Mia! and they have failed miserably. I told Catherine, "Never forget that the story is more important than the songs." And that was the ground rule: first story then song. A lot of people have tried to do it the other way round and it shows.
NOTHING PROMISED, NO REGRETS We all have responsibility for our own lives - we decide what to make of them and there's no one else who does that for us. We can't label anyone but ourselves. We want to live in secular societies where anyone can believe in anything they want, but lawmaking must be neutral and the state must be neutral.
IF I HAD TO DO THE SAME AGAIN You never stop wanting to express yourself; to create things. I started in this business when I was 18 and since then I've always tried to create new things, and I think it's in my blood. I will die with my boots on, I'm sure.
Tom Cassidy
Mamma Mia! runs from Wednesday to November 2 at Lyric Theatre, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Tickets are available at
hkticketing.com
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Bjorn Ulvaeus