Write to your MP
Ask your MP to support the Smart Fund – a practical proposal to to unlock up to £300million for creators, performers and cultural projects without the need for additional government spending.
It takes just two minutes to send your an MP an email:
- Complete the short form on this page—then click “Find your MP”
- Your MP will be displayed in the green box
- Use the “click here to email your MP now” button to open your email app. This will provide you with a draft email ready to personalise however you like.
- Click send when ready
- Alternatively, you can use the “copy to clipboard” button to copy and paste the letter text below across to your email.
The button above should open an email with the text ready to send. If you are having issues, click the second button above to let us know, or copy and paste the email below.
Here’s what we recommend writing…
Dear [INSERT MP NAME]
I am writing to you as a constituent of [INSERT CONSTITUENCY NAME], about the challenges facing the cultural and creative sectors, and an innovative proposal for investment.
Despite the critical role that visual artists, writers and performers play in generating £126 billion a year for the UK economy, most creatives receive low, precarious income. This reduces access for many, including emerging talent and those from lower income backgrounds, and results in a long-term loss of talent from the creative industries.
Despite the overwhelming success of the UK’s Creative Industries both nationally and internationally and their importance to UK soft power, UK creatives are being shortchanged by current policies and are at a disadvantage to their counterparts in 45 other countries, including almost every country in the EU, that already have in place effective private copying schemes.
Private copying schemes require manufacturers of tech devices to contribute a small percentage (typically 1-3%) of their revenues from sales of such devices into a scheme to support those who create and perform in the books, music, or visual arts that we love and that we copy and store on our personal devices. In France this amounted to 75million EUR reinvested into the arts in 2022. Crucially, in other countries where private copying schemes have been introduced, there has been no increase in the price of devices to consumers.
Royalties are an essential income stream for creatives, and the Smart Fund, by providing reciprocity with similar schemes which exist overseas, would enable UK creatives to continue to benefit from those schemes too, to help them to sustain their work.
In the UK, the Smart Fund campaign is working towards this and is proposed by a group of societies representing authors, performers and visual artists. The implementation of the Smart Fund has been backed by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in its report on Creator Remuneration.
The Smart Fund will:
- Ensure creators and performers receive payments to compensate them for their work being copied, downloaded and stored on digital devices.
- Establish an independent committee which will sit outside of government and agree the scope and value of the remuneration.
- Generate an estimated £300million a year in royalties, with a proportion used to support arts education, community projects or other grassroots arts projects, at no cost to the treasury or the public.
- Level the playing field for UK creatives with other countries with similar mechanisms.
I hope that you will support the Smart Fund, for the benefit of the creatives who live and work in the local area and the UK’s wider creative economy.
Please contact info@thesmartfund.co.uk for more information.
Yours sincerely,
[INSERT YOUR NAME]
[INSERT JOB E.G DIRECTOR, ARTIST, WRITER, PERFOMER]
A full breakdown of the proposal and its benefits can be found at https://thesmartfund.co.uk/.