Thousands of ticket-paying fans of veteran Hungarian rock band Bikini were dealt an unwelcome surprise on Saturday when Facebook pulled the plug on the group’s online concert over alleged copyright issues, band leader Lajos D. Nagy told Hungarian tabloid Bors on Tuesday.
“I am convinced that this the work of shady background powers, that we are being monitored by sophisticated filters and have been banned for ideological reasons,” D. Nagy told Bors. “Facebook claims that we have committed copyright violations because we played someone else’s tunes. If these are not our songs, then whose are they?”
The online concert — with ticket prices at 2,490 forints (€7) — began at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, but the stream was interrupted by Facebook some 23 minutes later.
“Although we will probably exchange letters with Facebook for months to come before a satisfactory solution — if there will be one — we have no intention of abandoning our audience,” D. Nagy said. “With even this curtailed concert having had proven quite popular and there is demand for another one, we plan to hold live concerts every month.”
The rest of the concert was streamed on Youtube.
While the band’s lyrics are not political in nature, Hungarian conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a fan of the band, last month congratulated D. Nagy on his 75th birthday in a Facebook message, posting a 1990 video in which he sings on stage together with the band.
