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I have had the honour of chairing the Menai Science Park's World Intellectual Property Day celebrations ever since 2019. These take the form of an in-person and online seminar. The science park held the first of these seminars just a few weeks after its first anniversary. It continued to celebrate them even during the pandemic. Every year's celebrations have been bigger and better than the year before. This year's was the biggest and best ever.
Because 26 April fell on a Saturday this year, we held our seminar on Tuesday, 29 April. The theme of this year's celebrations was IP and music: Feel the beat of IP. There could not have been a better one because music is an art form for which Wales is renowned in every genre and at every level.
Our first contributor was the Welsh composer, Jack White. Jack had first come to my notice as the composer of the scores for Ballet Cymru's Cinderella and Stuck in the Mud, but his repertoire is much broader than that. In an abridged recording of my interview with Jack, we discussed his latest work, which is arranging Luck Be A Lady, Waterloo and other songs for choirs. That led us to When Voices Rise, Jack's prize-winning work for the 40th anniversary celebrations of Manchester Chorale, filmed in St Ann's Church, Manchester, which is my favourite of Jack's works.
Emma Richards, Regional Policy Advisor at the Intellectual Property Office, presented an overview of the legal protection of creativity, enterprise and innovation in the United Kingdom. She discussed the rights that have to be registered with the Intellectual Property Office, such as patents, trade marks and registered designs and those that come into being automatically when certain conditions are met, such as copyrights and rights in performances. Copyrights protect the works of composers, songwriters, broadcasters, film makers, recording studios and publishers, while rights in performances protect singers, musicians and other performers from unauthorized filming, taping and broadcasting.
Next came Steffan Thomas of Bangor University Business School. He had carried out research on the digital distribution of music for small and medium enterprises in niche markets for his doctorate. He continues to teach and carry out research into digital marketing as Director of Teaching and Learning and Senior Lecturer. His presentation focused on music copyright in niche, minority language markets. He discussed the economics of digital distribution of music, which generates surprisingly little for the artists.
When he was still an undergraduate at Bangor University in the 1970s, Dafydd Roberts was the harpist and flautist in the band Ar Log. He is still performing in that band now. However, he has also worked as a director and producer with the BBC before going freelance and establishing his own TV production company. He was later Chief Executive of Sain Records, chaired the Welsh Music Foundation Board and the Canolfan Gerdd William Matthias and served on the board of Cerdd Cymru. He remains on the board of Eos, the Broadcasting Rights Agency and other bodies and now works as a freelance creative agent, producer and copyright consultant. By sharing his insight into the music industry as a broadcaster, composer, performer, publisher and recording studio executive, Dafydd supplemented Steffan's presentation on the economics of music distribution and laid a foundation for John Hywel Morris's on collecting societies.
Hywel had also been a composer and musician in Wales and London before joining the PRS for Music. He is now Senior Writer & Publisher Relations Manager, Wales at PRS for Music. In that role, he acquired considerable knowledge and experience of copyright licensing. He initiated the first joint licensing of the PRS for Music and PPL (Phonographic Performance Ltd) repertoire. Hywel discussed the role of collecting societies in Wales and dealings with the English and Welsh medium radio and TV broadcasters.
Liam Kurmos advises clients of Busnes Cymru on artificial intelligence and founder of Astralship. His talk was entitled Copyright in the Age of Copy-Paste AI but he covered all the legal and business issues that have arisen in this country. He considered the potential benefits of adopting the technology but acknowledged the practical difficulties of doing so.
Steffan, Dafydd and Hywel gave their presentations in Welsh while Emma and Liam delivered theirs in English. This was the first seminar that I had chaired when Welsh was used more than English. In the Q and A that followed the formal presentations, the panels discussed ways of increasing artists' revenues at a time when most music is distributed digitally. Live performances before a paying audience and marketing merchandise seemed to be the practical answers.
Credit for the success of this event goes to Gwenllian Owen. I interviewed Jack White and introduced the speakers, but she did all the rest. In particular, she identified five excellent speakers from the Welsh music industry and marshalled them in the most effective running order. I must also thank Iwan Pitts for editing my interview with Jack White and preparing an abridging it for the seminar.
Anyone wishing to discuss this article is welcome to call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 or send me a message through my contact form.
Anyone wishing to discuss this article is welcome to call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 or send me a message through my contact form.
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