Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will make it his policy to support the establishment of a music licensing and collections agency.

While the Government recognises the value of collective licensing, only copyright holders can determine what they want to do with their rights. Where those copyright holders have expressed a demand for a third party to manage their rights and collect rights revenue on their behalf, they have already set up licensing and collections agencies. In the music sector this has already happened, and for a number of years Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) and PRS for Music (PRS) have been licensing rights and collecting and distributing royalties on behalf of rightsholders.