Music Business Forum (MBF)
Equity is one of the organisations from across the 'music business' which make up the MBF. Other organisations include the National Music Council, the British Phonographic Industry, the Musicians Union, PPL (Phonographic Performance Ltd), British Music Rights and others. The MBF was created in 2001 to facilitate discussion within the music community on a wide range of issues of mutual concern and to find consensus in its discussions with government and other sectors and it has proved a great success in bringing the music community together to find one voice on a number of issues of mutual concern. An example of this collaboration is the ongoing campaign for the extension of copyright protection for sound recordings. The European Union has a copyright period of 50 years as opposed to 95 years for the USA record industry. The MBF is fighting to try to change the copyright period to protect UK and other European Union artists.