What isthe Smart Fund
The Smart Fund will create a new avenue of investment for arts and culture, paying a return to creators and performers for the use of their works on digital devices, supporting their creative overheads and helping to sustain their creative outputs. The Smart Fund has the potential to generate investment in arts and culture, in all regions of the UK, with no cost to the Government or taxpayer.
Manufacturers of devices including smart phones, tablets and laptops, pay a small fraction of the value of each device they sell into a fund that is paid out to creators by existing Collective Management Organisations. In many existing schemes, deductions are made to support arts and culture funding.
Generating up to £300 million annually, the Smart Fund will help sustain creative livelihoods and support culture and creativity in communities across the UK.
Generating between £250-300 million annually, the Smart Fund will help sustain creative livelihoods and increase opportunities.
Great ideas, like the Smart Fund, do not come along every day, certainly not ones that will deliver for our economy and for Britain.
Payment for freelance creators, investment in arts and culture
The UK is behind other countries in keeping up with technological developments.
Leading manufacturers are already paying into similar schemes in 45 countries around the world, generating over £900 million a year for creators and performers.
In many of these countries, alongside the payment to creators and performers, deductions are made specifically for social and cultural funding.
In France, revenues from private copying are the largest source of non-governmental funding for culture, supporting over 25,000 projects since 2021, with around EUR70million / year.