MusicBiz? It's child's play

A recent UK government media release has announced a competition, launched by the Intellectual Property Office, aimed at helping 14 to 18 year olds to understand better how songwriters, artists and bands are rewarded for their creativity. According to the media release:

The MusicBiz competition encourages entrants to create a short film or storyboard on how they think the music industry operates and musicians make a living [assuming that they do make a living, of course ...].

Improving the understanding of intellectual property (IP), piracy and copyright issues will help cut IP crime and better support the music industry. The competition winners will win unique industry experiences, concert tickets and music vouchers, and will be announced next year.

Minister for Intellectual Property, Lord Younger said:

“The internet has revolutionised the way that we all get, listen to and store music. However, with these changes we have experienced, unfortunately, increasing amount of piracy and copyright infringement. “One of the ways we can help tackle this is through educating people as to how the music industry operates. Through the MusicBiz competition we hope to show them the importance of both the value and protection of copyright and creativity for our world-class creative industries.”

CEO of UK Music, Jo Dipple said:

“We think that it is important that all young people, irrespective of their future career choice should have an understanding and appreciation of Intellectual Property. “We hope that MusicBiz will appeal to both teachers and students as a valuable learning resource and encourage open discussion in the classroom on a topic that inadvertently affects British consumers".

The competition is part of the IPO’s education campaign, ‘Treasure Island’ [an unfortunate choice of names: see eg here] which aims to build understanding of, and respect for, intellectual property in an engaging and creative way. The IPO will launch its Karaoke Shower at the Music Show in Manchester in November, before it starts a tour of the UK.

The MusicBiz competition closes on 31 March 2014. Further details about the competition can be found at www.ipo.gov.uk/musicbiz