Firstly, I hope that all of you together with your loved ones had a thoroughly enjoyable and restful Christmas and New Year holiday. 

Now that we are all back in the fray, I thought I would drop you a line about one of the key issues currently on our agenda. As you know, our recent and very intensive political lobbying has paid off – thanks to your efforts. The video message(www.ppluk.com/fairplay) to the Prime Minister and the letters to MPs have got through.

Just before Christmas, the Government announced a change of heart on copyright term. In his speech to the Creators’ Conference, Andy Burnham revealed that they have now accepted that the term should be extended in principle, although they still fall short of offering performers parity with other creators. We will continue to talk to them about moving to 95 years.

Our focus is now shifting to Europe where the draft Copyright Term Directive is being debated. There are two crucial votes coming up in the European Parliament in February and March. We have already been talking to many of the MEPs (Members of the European Parliament), urging them to support us. If you would like to help further in the Fair Play for Musicians campaign, then you could write to your MEP, urging him/her to vote for the Copyright Term Directive. The main points to make are below. Just choose two or three to include in your email:

• Performers get a much shorter copyright term than other creators – composers, authors, lyricists, graphic artists and photographers.
• Performers are as crucial as other creators in making a record.
• Royalties (eg PPL airplay) from recordings are important (however large or small).
• There is no effect on consumers (eg iTunes charge the same price for in- and out-of-copyright recordings).
• When recordings go out of copyright, others profit but the performers get nothing.
• Support the draft Copyright Term Directive which increases the copyright term for both performers and producers to 95 years from release (the same as the USA and on a par with other creators who get life plus seventy years).

You could also ask them if they will be supporting this Directive. We will put the names of all supportive MEPs on the PPL website. Make sure your MEP is added to the list!

You can find your MEP by looking at the European Parliament website http://www.europarl.org.uk/uk_meps/MembersMain.htm. If you click on your region, you will find a list of half a dozen MEPs, all of whom represent you in Europe, with their email addresses. If you are feeling strong, send an email to each of them, and copy my colleaguedominic.mcgonigal@ppluk.com.

Many thanks again for your support in this. That support is showing results and we are determined that in these final stages we get the copyright term that you deserve.

Watch this space and in the meantime, on behalf of all of us here at PPL, I offer our very best wishes for 2009.

Kind regards

Fran

FRAN NEVRKLA
Chairman & CEO

PPL
1 Upper James Street, London W1F 9DE 
T +44 (0)20 7534 1000 / F +44 (0)20 7534 1111

WATCH OUR VIDEO MESSAGE TO GORDON BROWN AT www.ppluk.com/fairplay