No Free Complete Bach Downloads This Christmas from BBC

The BBC made quite a stir in June when for 2 weeks only the complete symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven were available for free download. They were downloaded 1.4 million times from users around the world. As to be expected, record companies were not happy, feeling that this bit into their sales figures. It seems that the BBC does not want to draw the wrath of the angry labels again, or so MediaGuardian reports. BBC Radio 3 will be airing a 10-day Bach extravaganza in December and had originally planned to release some complete downloads of Bach's music for free. However, after consulting with the British Phonographic Industry and others, they have decided that they will scrap this plan and only make snippets available, and maybe not even that. However, some record companies do not mind snippets being distributed as they feel this might help record sales rather than hinder them. One alternative proposed is to offer limited downloads that would expire after 7 days. Regardless of what they do, it is great that they offered the Beethoven downloads and would be fantastic if they offered Bach downloads, too, as it would be a much needed shot of new life for Classical Music around the world.