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- The Pipedown Campaign for Freedom from Piped Music, or simply Pipedown, is a UK-based environmental campaign founded in 1992 by the author and environmentalist Nigel Rodgers that opposes the practice of playing background music (piped music) in public establishments. It has links with the sister group in Germany and other countries. In Scotland there is a sister group Quiet Scotland, so named because the term "piped music" sounds too similar to "pipe music" to Scottish ears. The campaign fights background music in public places such as hospitals, libraries, swimming pools, pubs, shops and restaurants. Its literature describes unwanted piped music, also often called elevator music, "Muzak" or canned music, as any music piped without pause through a room or building where people have gone for reasons other than to listen to it. It emphasizes that it does not distinguish between different types of music, saying that all music is debased by being used as a marketing tool or acoustic wallpaper. Pipedown's literature argues that, while music freely chosen is one of life's greatest pleasures, music forced on people can too easily become the exact opposite. In support of this view, Pipedown makes the following additional points:
* More people have been shown to dislike inescapable piped music than like it.
* Some people find it the "most irritating thing in modern life".
* 86% of people with hearing problems, about 16% of the population, hate piped background music.
* Like other noise pollution, constant piped music can be a health hazard. It can depress the immune system while raising blood pressure and levels of stress hormones such as cortisol, increasing the risks of strokes or heart attacks.
* Research reported in 2013 has highlighted the special problems facing older people who have presbycusis. Presbycusis results in unwanted background noises such as piped music drowning out welcome foreground noise such as conversation. (en)
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