The deadline for registrations to the 2010 BPI Sync Licensing mission passed last week, and I’m pleased to say despite the testing commercial times we live in (or maybe precisely because of?), we have had a record number of applications and are taking over 40 companies to the City of Angels this coming April. The delegate list contains a large number of ‘first-timers’, plus some returnees. Hopefully, whatever category our delegates fit into, all will find it a useful and hopefully profitable experience. [More]

Last Thursday, the first BPI Independent/International committee meeting of 2010 took place at the BPI office in Westminster. These are normally held once a month (although January is often missed because of MIDEM), and they are generally open to any BPI independent member who wishes to attend. Cons... [More]

With Tuesday 16th February just over a week away, the BRITs 30th Anniversary show is now completely sold out. Our ticketing team are already turning down requests from music industry types and with the public sale of seats it’s a similar story.

Ticketmaster and See Tickets are given an allocation for the Balcony area to sell to the public. The first few days of sales after the Nominations Launch party are held exclusively for those millions of people who hold a MasterCard. After that, all payment methods are accepted. [More]

My MIDEM this year didn’t start until Sunday evening, as other commitments made an earlier arrival not possible. However, Easyjet Flight # 3103 from Stansted duly deposited me at Nice airport mid afternoon and - courtesy of the Nice/Cannes express bus - I had my delegate registration ID round my neck, and was on the British Music @ MIDEM stand within a couple of hours. Although the ‘exhibition day’ was nearly over, there was still plenty of activity and bustling evidence of the increased number of UK delegates that we had at this year’s MIDEM. [More]

Let me welcome you to the BPI’s new blog. We’ll be updating it regularly with views and opinions on issues affecting the music industry.



One of the most talked-about issues right now is the Digital Economy Bill and its proposed measures tackling illegal filesharing. You may have seen the recent article in The Daily Mail where TalkTalk boss Charles Dunstone describes the measures as a “copyright crackdown we will all pay for.” Feargal Sharkey from UK Music has responded in the Daily Mail to Charles’ original claims, but I thought it would be useful to share with you BPI’s thoughts on this, in particular on the ISPs’ claims relating to costs.



BPI and its partners in the Creative Coalition Campaign have just released the findings of two independent reports that look at the likely costs to ISPs of setting up and running a notification process as envisaged by the Bill to help prevent illegal filesharing. The evidence from the first report, carried out by Sweet Consulting, shows that total costs to the big five ISPs of sending notifications to music filesharers would be £13.85 million in the first year, around £9m in the second year, and would be likely to drop to £3.4m in the third and subsequent years. [More]