'HARPERS HEROES' "The England Song" - Completed on schedule -

DESPITE THE COPYRIGHT SETBACKS

OUTLINED BELOW

- PLEASE READ -

We initially wanted to use our newly recorded version of the song "There'll always be an England" (which was used in World War II to boost armed forces morale - without any copyright problems). All we wanted to do was to use a new "up tempo" version of the song with some different lyrics pertaining to the England Football World Cup, just to raise money for 'Help for Heroes' in order to support our armed forces in this current war where our troops are regularly getting killed or seriously wounded - but after 5 weeks with lots of phone calls & some Emails - finally we were refused the copyright licence by the copyright owners 'DASH MUSIC' - without giving us any reason for it - !

Copyright is in force for 70 years after the death of the writer - copyright then passes to the estate of the deceased songwriter. The writer of "There'll always be an England" died in 1955 as far as I know.

WE WERE NOT ALLOWED TO USE OUR VERSION OF "There''ll always be an England" BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

THAT SURELY IS NOT RIGHT ! and indeed in our opinion it was very unpatriotic of the copyright owners by not allowing us to use just the song melody for such a worthy & necessary cause - "Help for Heroes". We appealed against the decision, but at the time of writing this, Craig Harper has not received a reply from the copyright owners. Our music publisher has been in contact with the copyright owners - but to no avail - !

Time is running out for us, as we want to release the song no later than May Day to maximise the amount that we can potentially raise for 'Help for Heroes'.

The really annoying part of the unfolding sequence of events over the last couple of months was the non-negotiable flat refusal by the copyright owners to let us use the old song "There'll always be an England" which was our original choice of song for the England World Cup 2010, as it is such a patriotic English anthem.

If "There'll always be an England" is so precious to the copyright owners, how come they let "Tiny Tim" & "The Sex Pistols" make a mockery of the song in the 60's & 70's? - but they will not let us use it in 2010, despite the fact that anyone with a computer can watch & listen to the song, download the lyrics - or indeed the entire song itself from the Internet for free anyway - regardless of the copyright status. When we started with the music we originally bought the sheet music for the song online - we did not do a "copyright infringing" download.

The original version of the song "There'll always be an England" was used for a major morale boost for our troops & the British population in general during the war years, but at that time without any copyright problems.

All we wanted to do was simply use the melody of the original song with some of the original song lyrics mixed with some of our own lyrics, in a new up-tempo arrangement - not to any make any money at all for ourselves - but solely to raise as much money as possible for 'Help for Heroes' to support our armed forces, our brave servicemen & women in this current war - but we were refused the copyright license.

'Dash Music' - the copyright owner of "There'll always be an England", after submitting our request to the people responsible for the granting of the copyright licence, decided that we could not use the original track that we recorded & submitted to them, even though the project, including the video shoot, was well under way.

So ..... 'HARPERS HEROES' are very determined to raise as much money as we possibly can for 'Help for Heroes' by whatever means we have at our disposal, and generally refusing to be beaten by this pathetic & in our opinion grossly unfair refusal of a copyright licence for "There'll always be an England", Craig Harper & Keith Appleton went back into Academy Studio and we have now created our own song with an entirely different melody, an entirely different chord structure to the original song & we used our own lyrics rather than the ones from the original "There'll always be an England" in the first version of the song.

Thankyou to everyone who has recorded vocals on the track - both times - ! You are all amazing people and it has been a pleasure working with you all.

We now have a copyright voice over version link - here on the official 'Harpers Heroes' website.

Please feel free to have a listen to the voiced over song - available form the linlk below.

The track will be available to download and purchase from 1st May 2010 - so please buy it, as our servicemen & women seriously need your help.

Don't forget that every last penny of the profit that is made from this song will be going to the 'Help for Heroes' charity.

This of course now includes the royalties that Craig Harper & Keith Appleton as PRS Members, will subsequently receive from sales, public performances & airplay. The group's policy is not to take any money from the profits, but to give ALL of the profits to 'Help for Heroes'

We heavily relied on the good nature and patriotism of everyone involved in the project, and not a penny has been taken out during the production of the song & video - not even for expenses - we paid ALL of the the expenses ourselves - using our own money.

"The England Song" video edit is now almost complete - our sincere thanks must go to Mike Walker of Tapebank Digital Audio - if for nothing else - his infinite patience - ! Sorry Mike, I know that edit was only 2 frames out . . . . . ! We only just got everyone in ...... just the trailer to re-shoot in the morning - yes Craig, there is actually a 9 o' clock in the morning as well as the 9 o' clock in the evening - !

We had a fantastic day of filming. Some of the stuff we have is absolutely fantastic and is going to make the video mega. Many thanks to everyone who was involved in filming today. Especially to Melissa and her girls for letting us use the studio at Normanton. Your girls did you proud. Also Gemma's dance Academy who travelled over from Hull to take part. Thankyou all from the bottom of my heart. Also thanks to the Galpharm stadium staff for accommodating us for a few hours.

Craig Harper

Thursday 18th of March - Craig Harper & friends filming at Blackpool - all welcome- North Pier

Here's your last chance to be in the video for the England song. After tomorrow we will be finished with the filming for the video. So if you haven't done a video of you singing the song - then it will be too late. We are in BLACKPOOL tomorrow from 12 noon. We need people down there to appear in the crowd shots. So if you aren't doing anything, get yourselves to the North Pier and meet a few of the celebrities that we will have there. "Rock on Tommy".

Tuesday 23rd of March - Recording at Academy Studio in Dewsbury

Recorded Madeline Brown on ''The England Song" The recording was a pleasure to do, and many thanks go to Madeline for her vocal & video contribution to the 'Harpers Heroes' project. There was also a video shoot in the studio, showing work in progress on the track - with Madeline Brown, Craig Harper, Simon Young & Dene Michael.

A short preview video introduced by Craig Harper is now edited & uploaded to 'You Tube'

Click Here to Watch the Video Trailer

VIDEO OUTTAKES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THE FACEBOOK GROUP - PLEASE CLICK HERE

Castleford Tigers feature 'HARPERS HEROES' - Please click here to view