PRS for Music Welcomes Industry Moves to Implement Copyright Hub

Representatives of the publishing, music, images, audio-visual and other creative sectors have joined forces

We join with others across the industry in welcoming the announcement today that James Lancaster former Head of Rights and Business Affairs at the BBC will chair the Copyright Licensing Steering Group (CLSG) and that Ros Lynch will be leading an office to spearhead the work to deliver Richard Hooper’s Copyright Works recommendations.  We will continue to work with our partners in the industry to meet the challenges he identified, providing a better licensing environment for all. As previously stated we believe that the Copyright Hub recommended by Hooper could place Britain at the very centre of the global, online market for the creative industries. Coupled with industry efforts for a Global Repertoire Database (GRD), it will prove to be a critical building block in what must inevitably be an international project.

Representatives of the publishing, music, images, audio-visual and other creative sectors have joined forces to take forward Richard Hooper’s recommendations in his report, Copyright Works, published in July of this year. Steps to implement recommendations from the report will focus on streamlining copyright licensing for the digital age, making it easier for users to access rights and services lawfully and so ensuring that creators are rewarded when their works are used. In line with the recommendations the creative sectors have seized the initiative to follow up on the report and have already committed funding to enable this project to progress.

James Lancaster, former Head of Rights and Business Affairs at the BBC, will chair the Copyright Licensing Steering Group (CLSG), which will oversee a range of workstreams focusing on different aspects of copyright licensing including data building blocks, metadata and streamlining licensing in various sectors. A key workstream will steer the development of the Copyright Hub identified in the report and this is being chaired by Richard Hooper under the banner of the Copyright Hub Launch Group. Members of the CLSG and each of the workstreams are currently being recruited from across the creative industries and work is getting underway.

I am delighted to be chairing this important group which will play a significant role in making it easier for rights and works to be licensed for the benefit of all.

Hooper’s proposed Copyright Hub builds on the recommendation for a digital copyright exchange in a government review into intellectual property and growth carried out in 2011 and led by Professor Ian Hargreaves.

Dr Ros Lynch, a member of the Senior Civil Service in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and collaborator on Hooper’s final report, has been seconded to lead an industry funded office to spearhead the work to deliver the report’s recommendations.

To find out more about the Copyright Licensing Steering Group and the Copyright Hub Launch Group, please contact Dr Ros Lynch at ros.lynch@pearson.com. The Copyright Licensing Co-ordination Office is based at Pearson plc, 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL