Mungo Jerry’s No 1 hit In the Summertime is one of the biggest-selling singles in history but it is also one of the most pirated songs of all time.
Now the band’s composer, lead singer and frontman Ray Dorset is using newly developed technology to protect his songs in the digital age.
Mungo Jerry shot to worldwide fame in 1970 with a catchy, carefree song – one of the best-known summer pop songs.
The feelgood mix of skiffle, Caribbean and Latin American melodies was played on everything from guitar and piano to a banjo and glass bottle.
But to Dorset’s dismay, an estimated £23m in royalties were lost through unlicensed exploitation, from bootlegged records to streaming playlists.
“I certainly lost out,” he said. “Pirates should get drummed out of the business and pay for all the grief that they’ve caused to so many people.”
But he hopes he can protect the future by hiring the anti-piracy firm TCAT. Dorset is impressed by its “unique fingerprinting software” that protects music from illegal use, tracking it worldwide, spotting potential infringements, duplications, cloned or fake versions.
He said: “It will instantly find out where that song has been obtained from. You will actually find out who the aggregator – the person who has used it – is.
“Then it gives the owner a lot more opportunity to engage a legal team. The TCAT software will definitely assist in this … [Piracy] is downright theft but it’s not something that the police would deal with.”
He spoke of many musicians whose recordings were being exploited on the internet, including social media platforms, noting that it had been impossible to keep track of the abuse, let alone retrieve royalties.
He said: “It doesn’t matter if it’s £5, £500 or £500m. If it’s money that you are entitled to, then you should be getting it.”
Dorset, 78, composed three UK No 1s – Baby Jump in 1971, Feels Like I’m in Love, performed by Kelly Marie in 1980, and In the Summertime, as well as several international chart hits.
He had a day job as a technician and designer at Timex watches when he found success in the music business, turning him overnight from a semi-professional musician to an international star, selling 30m copies.
Robin Abeyesinhe, the managing director of TCAT, said: “Music is being uploaded without permission and without artists’ knowledge. Tracks are being streamed millions of times and royalties are simply flowing into the pirates’ bank accounts.
“Currently there’s not much labels can do about it and they don’t want to talk about it either – as frankly it’s highly embarrassing to admit to your artists that you can’t keep track of their songs.”
He added: “TCAT Protect allows artists to see where their music is potentially being pirated across the globe, 24/7. It’s the first time this has been possible. It gives artists and rights holders insight that has never before been available.”
The software uses “advanced audio fingerprinting software” to match songs on music streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer and Napster.
There are millions of songs and billions of pieces of digital data to monitor but the software can track music across the world, in real time, and uncover potential theft through AI and human duplication.
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is supporting Dorset’s campaign. Niki Haywood, its co-head of content protection, said: “Intellectual property crime is a huge black hole for the UK, sucking in some £13bn from the legal economy, and making it the second only to drugs as the most profitable form of criminality.
“What people don’t always realise is that IP crime often goes hand in hand, and funds, other forms of criminality, so its impact is even more destructive. This last year alone, our own BPI work tackling counterfeit music has unfortunately also uncovered child protection abuses, illicit firearms trading, money laundering and drug racketeering.
“Since 2020, the value of seizures from BPI-led physical investigations is £36m, underlining quite how much funding is lost by musicians and artists to piracy.”
Mungo Jerry – named after a character in TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats – has just released a new recording of In the Summertime. Describing it as even “brighter” than the original, with a saxophone solo among new sounds, Dorset ruled out the idea of reworking the lyrics. He said people who suggested certain lines were politically incorrect were misreading them, that “have a drink, have a drive” does not necessarily mean alcohol.
Ultimately, he said, the song was “a celebration of life”.
