The government is consulting on the introduction of a new tax relief for orchestra production companies: it is proposed that this will be similar to Theatre Tax Relief.

Companies must be engaged in the production of live orchestral performances and the relief will be in respect of the creative and production costs incurred in their production. A higher rate of tax credit will apply to touring performances. It will be possible for orchestras to group together multiple qualifying performances in one tax relief claim

Qualifying companies can claim either:

• An additional tax deduction (the enhancement) of 100% of expenditure (the lesser of UK qualifying expenditure or 80% of total qualifying expenditure), or
• where after claiming enhanced deduction of expenditure the company makes a loss it may surrender the lower of that loss or the qualifying enhanced expenditure and be repaid a tax credit claim amounting to 25% of the loss for a touring production, or 20% of the loss for non-touring production

The maximum relief available per company is £50 million, and the maximum aid intensity should not exceed 100% of eligible costs.

To qualify, the majority of performances for which relief is being claimed must be played by a musical ensemble consisting of 14 or more performers and must include players drawn from each of the following four sections: string instruments, woodwind instruments, brass instruments and percussion instruments.

Where a company claims orchestra tax relief, it will not be able to claim relief under another tax credit scheme such as film tax relief, theatre tax relief or the research and development tax credit.

The company must be within the charge to UK tax and directly involved in the development of an orchestra’s performance, as in responsible for creating and developing the content of the performance and actively involved in the decision making process to deliver it.
Qualifying expenditure can be incurred in any country, although at least 25% of the core expenditure must be incurred in the European Economic Area.

All this may sound high level but these reliefs encourage more work for the individual musicians who comprise the orchestra.

Consultation on the proposed relief closes on 5 March 2015

Avid’s Pro Tools audio production software is considered by some as the staple of the music industry and Avid is now providing a junior version for free. It includes a “subset” of the usual features (you’re mainly missing extra tracks, score editing and video playback), but it otherwise behaves like the paid version. You will not have to relearn anything if you become really successful and start using the full software.

Avid earns its money through the App by after-the-fact purchases. You’ll get 21 audio effect plugins from the outset, but you’ll have to pay for more. You can keep three projects in the cloud for free. While you can export finished tracks, you pay for permanent offline copies or more online space. Possibly a cheap way to get started until you are ready to consider the benefits of using the full software.

The new copyright regulations came into force earlier this month, introducing a new right to make personal copies of lawfully purchased copyrighted material without rights holders’ permission. They also introduce new limited rights to quote publically available copyrighted works and use copyrighted material in works of parody.

The new regulations are an attempt to modernise copyright rules for the digital age.
Going forward there may be an element of uncertainty about how the new exceptions should be interpreted and there may be short term disruption for those selling on the internet however the creation of a wider accessible market place for selling copyrighted content should benefit rights holders in the long term.

The parody and quotation exceptions are qualified by an overarching requirement that the use of copyrighted material is ‘fair dealing’, a concept under UK copyright law that essentially limits the use of copyrighted material to that which is necessary for a desired and permitted purpose and which does not unduly harm the interests of rights holders.

The reforms are more “pragmatic” than “comprehensive and there are calls to completely overhaul the existing Copyright, Designs and Patents Act but for the moment this appears too time consuming and challenging an exercise. In the future UK copyright laws are more likely to be shaped by EU dictate which is in their current agenda.