Our destiny calling.

UK Music's Sharkey exhorts industry to "control our own destiny"

By Robert Ashton

UK Music opens its doors today with a promise to deliver big, radical ideas by launching a music manifesto to help the industry regain control of its own destiny.

The group is planning to research and prepare the document - its own response to the Government's Creative Britain document - over the next few months in a bid to "provide long-term thinking and manage (an) agenda for the industry".

The ambitious launch strategy follows last Thursday's second board meeting of UK Music, which earlier this month brought the whole commercial sector under an umbrella to provide one industry voice on key issues.

The board meeting also tied up a pan-industry submission to the Government's consultation on legislative options to address illicit P2P filesharing.

UK Music chief executive Feargal Sharkey says some big philosophical questions will be addressed by the research, which will also suggest how the Government, whose own DCMS and BERR departments came up with its blueprint for creative economy in February, can support the industry.