Doherty told delegates at the Westminster Media Forum’s Next Steps for the Music Industry event in London that government should work harder to ensure more music is recorded here in the UK, and will urge the next parliament to act.
‘We’re already working with government to ensure that once we’ve created great music, more of it will be exported, helping our balance of payments, of which, on average, £230m comes from recorded music,’ he said.
‘But government can and should do more to ensure that more music is recorded here in the UK rather than overseas – allowing us to generate more copyright music to exploit internationally.’
Doherty went on to suggest that the existing tax credit systems covering film, drama and children’s TV should be extended to help support the music industry.
‘We should have a tax credit for recording so that artists make their records here using our studios, our producers, our equipment manufacturers and our services.
‘We should also have a tax credit for music video production. Big artists should be shooting their videos here rather than seeking out low cost countries to film them.’
He argued that such a tax credit would not only support artists and record companies but many related services and industries including camera crews, make-up artists and choreographers.
Addressing the roomful of delegates, which included representatives from UK Music, PRS for Music, BASCA, Merlin, 7Digital and Sony/ATV, he went on to praise the work of the government-backed Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit and stress the role anti-piracy measures play.
‘The most fundamental requirement for a healthy music business in the long term is the need to ensure in the digital age music is consumed from legal services, which reward creators for the investment they have made rather than from the internet black market economy,’ he said.
'The UK has the ground breaking Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, targeting pirate sites and disrupting their activities. It works with online advertisers and payment providers to throttle the income of illegal sites and to seize their domain names to close their businesses down. The government has committed further funding to the unit but I hope this will become normalised.'
In the past week alone, the BPI has sent more than two million notices to Google requiring it to remove links to illegal copies of British music from its search results.
‘We’re already working with government to ensure that once we’ve created great music, more of it will be exported, helping our balance of payments, of which, on average, £230m comes from recorded music,’ he said.
‘But government can and should do more to ensure that more music is recorded here in the UK rather than overseas – allowing us to generate more copyright music to exploit internationally.’
Doherty went on to suggest that the existing tax credit systems covering film, drama and children’s TV should be extended to help support the music industry.
‘We should have a tax credit for recording so that artists make their records here using our studios, our producers, our equipment manufacturers and our services.
‘We should also have a tax credit for music video production. Big artists should be shooting their videos here rather than seeking out low cost countries to film them.’
He argued that such a tax credit would not only support artists and record companies but many related services and industries including camera crews, make-up artists and choreographers.
Addressing the roomful of delegates, which included representatives from UK Music, PRS for Music, BASCA, Merlin, 7Digital and Sony/ATV, he went on to praise the work of the government-backed Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit and stress the role anti-piracy measures play.
‘The most fundamental requirement for a healthy music business in the long term is the need to ensure in the digital age music is consumed from legal services, which reward creators for the investment they have made rather than from the internet black market economy,’ he said.
'The UK has the ground breaking Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, targeting pirate sites and disrupting their activities. It works with online advertisers and payment providers to throttle the income of illegal sites and to seize their domain names to close their businesses down. The government has committed further funding to the unit but I hope this will become normalised.'
In the past week alone, the BPI has sent more than two million notices to Google requiring it to remove links to illegal copies of British music from its search results.
