Ben Freckles, a songwriter hailing from Llandudno, has been awarded the highest ever award for copyright infringement by the High Court. Freckles, who has published fifty thousand songs in a career spanning seventy years, has never had a song recorded crediting him, but he successfully claimed he wrote the music to most of the songs that have been top ten hits since 1960 in practically every country in the world.
'His ground-breaking, if commercially unpopular, series of instrumentals in 1960 ranging from the admittedly monotonous "A A A A" through to the seemingly adventurous "A B A B A D E A" in 1961, with practically every musical sequence in-between has been proven in court to represent musical sequences used in practically every subsequent song written,' said his lawyer in a statement today, admitting that the cumbersomely titled "A C D B B# B A F# Fb C A E E A A B" was difficult to hum, let alone plagiarise.'
The music industry, it has been alleged, were more than aware of Freckles' output, with industry experts pointing to Genesis' "Abacab" being a direct reference to possibly the only musical combination Freckles hadn't published. Freckles, 94, may not live to enjoy the award - currently being expressed in standard form to make it easier to write on a cheque - as a counter class action from the executors of Beethoven, Bach and Brahms has been launched, with class actions from executors of dead composers whose names don't begin with a B to follow.
First published 15 Mar 2022
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