Why Music Matters

I was happy to attend the launch on Wednesday of the music industry’s new Music Matters campaign, at the Curzon cinema in Soho.   This is a joined-up effort by the whole of the industry – including artists, labels, managers, publishers, trade bodies etc – to communicate with music fans about why music is important, and to help fans easily identify sites that properly pay artists and the everyone else involved in making music.  

A series of short films were shown about what inspired iconic artists, and the influence they have had on others - they’re all available to see on the Music Matters website at www.whymusicmatters.org.  The website explains what the campaign is about and lists the various legal music services that are already supporting it. There was an amazing turnout of influential figures from right across the business, and they were treated to a great performance by the Fron Male Voice Choir, who are the subject of one of the Music Matters films.   Expect to see the Music Matters badge appearing soon on music services and many artist websites.   

BPI is delighted that this initiative has now gone live. We hope it will become established as a kind of ethical “fair trade” mark for music.  And now that music is available digitally everywhere, it is more important than ever to remind fans that music is something precious, which takes time, effort, talent and investment to create. We hope the campaign will help inform consumers’ choices about how they access music and help ensure that more music is consumed legally going forward.

We have always believed that building a digital music market that works requires three things - developing exciting new music services, educating consumers about the importance of musicians and labels being rewarded, and creating disincentives to illegal downloading.  This campaign should be a major step forward in our education efforts.