As the Department for Culture, Media and Sport sponsors the creative industries, the music industry has raised the issue of the copyright term for sound recordings most recently in discussions that were held in the context of our creative economy programme. The policy responsibility for copyright issues, however, rests with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills.
The Minister will be aware of the profound sense of disappointment in the music industry that musicians alone are not to receive the same type of copyright protection as other artists and creators in the creative economy. It also seems that the economic case for rejecting term extension has been blown out of the water by consultants LEGG, who conclude that term extension would be good not just for musicians, but for the industry and for the economy. I welcome the Minister and her team to the Dispatch Box. Will she do the right thing by UK musicians, look at term extension again and ensure that our musicians get the same protection as other artists and creators?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question and look forward in my new role to hearing him play in MP4. On the issue that he raises, the research evidence is extremely mixed. He knows that Gowers undertook a review, and the Europeans have undertaken a review from Hugenholtz. I am told that the Gowers review involved five Nobel prize winners and many well known academics. The important thing for the music industry is to ensure that in the changing environment in which it must survive, there are proper business models which will enable individual performers, composers and all those who are involved in the music industry to get a proper return for their creative investment in that industry. That is what I shall be turning my mind to, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in that exercise.