RIGA - Representatives of the acclaimed rock band Pink Floyd have said that they are not happy about the illegal use of their song, "Another Brick in the Wall," in a video clip made by Latvia's Russian education defenders against the government's reform program, Latvia's MicRec publishers reported.
MicRec director Guntars Racs, in charge of distributing Pink Floyd music in Latvia, said that representatives of the copyrights were not pleased.
Pink Floyd Music Publishers, representatives of Roger Waters, who authored the song, is ready to prevent the music from being illegally used, said the company's Scandinavian representative Magnuss Plomberg.
"This is a coarse violation of the copyrights held by the author we represent, and we wish to take action immediately in order to stop the illegal use of the song for political causes. We want to make everyone aware ... that this has not been approved by the author," according to Plomberg.
Racs said that his publishing company was consulting with lawyers regarding further action.
He strongly criticized the arguments of those who put the legendary Pink Floyd music to video.
"Genadijs Kotovs of Latvia's Russian school-protest movement said in an interview to the public Latvian radio company that the video clip was not made by anyone, and that the melody of the Pink Floyd song may actually have been gained from altering the Russian folk song Chorniy Voron, or Black Crow. Funny. It turns out the clip has come from thin air."
Racs said that police might be involved in finding out the true authors of the video clip and that a reward might also be announced by the publishers.
Kotovs previously said that nothing bad had been done.
"It's just folk art. We do not broadcast the clip on TV. We simply deal out discs to school kids," said Kotovs.
The video clip, which has been shown on TV in Latvia, shows young kids dressed in black with stylized swastikas on their armbands, which supposedly symbolize the education reform. The kids are shown to be demolishing racks of books in the Russian language.
The clip, which goes to the famous world famous tune, uses words in Russian saying "Paws off Russian schools," "Black Karlis, what are you circling for," or "Hey Sadurskis, take note, we'll keep breathing how we like," in a reference to Education Minister Karlis Sadurskis.
Parliament adopted amendments to the education law on Feb. 5 (see story on Page 2), which will regulate the number of lessons taught in Latvian at state-run minority high schools.
The minister claims this will raise the competitiveness of minorities, but Latvia's Russian minority, numbering around one third of the country's population, is largely against the move.
