I hired an artist to paint a portrait. I offered $500. He agreed. We had a deal. He painted the painting. I liked it. I gave him the money. A few years later he returned. “You owe me another $450” he said.

We looked at the contract. “But you agreed to paint it for $500 and I paid you that amount.” He admitted this was true, but pointed out that painters in other countries sometimes received higher amounts, as did sculptors in our own country. In fact, he told me, all British painters planned to demand another $450 for each picture they had already painted as well as for future pictures. This would “harmonise” our prices with other countries, put painting on the same footing as sculpture, and enable painters to hire more apprentices.

We hope to make an audio-visual record available within a week or so.

I’m very much looking forward to getting the audio/video up online so that those who could not attend will be able to find out what happened. In the meantime, there’s a blog post from Fernando Barrio with his take on the evening, and an article from PC Pro from our journalist briefing yesterday. I’d like to thank:

• All our speakers - Professor Jonathan Zittrain, John Howkins, Dave Rowntree, Caroline Wilson, Richard Mollet and Martin Talbot - for taking time out to participate in our event.
• John Buckman of Magnatune for providing a venue for our journalists’ briefing yesterday.
• Derek Wyatt MP and his office for helping us organise the MPs briefing on Thursday.
• The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust for funding the Release The Music campaign with a grant of £5,000.
• And Michael Holloway, Becky Hogge, Lubna Azhaar, Mike Little, Lemon and all the ORG volunteers for helping with both the event and the site.

What next? Last night’s event was the culmination of over a month’s work, but it’s really just the beginning of our campaign. We have a number of things that you can do to support our efforts, including sign our petition (according to Martin Talbot, Music Week got 2000 names and AIM got 4000 names in favour of extension which they presented to the Gowers Review, so we have a way to go to match those), blog about our campaign and the issues involved, or write to your MP.

Whatever you do, don’t do nothing. The music industry has a lot of resources, but we have you, and your voice is important.

releasethemusic

6.00pm - Registration
6.30 - 7.30pm - Professor Jonathan Zittrain, Oxford University
7.30 - 8.30pm - Should the term of copright protection on sound recordings be extended?
Moderator: John Howkins, Adelphi Charter
For: Richard Mollet, Director of Public Affairs, BPI; Martin Talbot, Editor, Music Week
Against: Dave Rowntree, Blur; Caroline Wilson, Southampton Law School
8.30 - 10.00pm - A pre-1955 DJ set
10.00pm - Close

There are still tickets left, so sign up now if you would like to come.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be adding more and more information here to help you make up your own mind. Meantime, please do get involved!