The head of a group representing the UK’s biggest music labels has urged his industry to work closely with network operators, claiming that partnerships between carriers and the likes of Spotify and Deezer is one way in which the mobile music market can help overcome the problem of piracy and achieve its full potential.

In a new video interview with Mobile World Live, Geoff Taylor – CEO of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) – cites the Telia/Spotify and Orange/Deezer deals in Sweden and France, respectively, as evidence that partnerships between digital music services and network operators can work. However, Taylor says this is just the beginning of a long road: “They’ve still got a long way to grow and what we need to do is get more people familiar with them.”

He adds: “As a business we are very keen to talk to mobile operators and make sure we have the right partnerships in place to drive scale because the digital music market is growing quite fast.”

One of the BPI’s main objectives is to highlight the importance of legal music services in an industry that has been fighting a major war against piracy. And Taylor believes the mobile players can help in this fight: “We hope that network operators will be part of the value chain for the legal distribution of music. I think it’s in everyone’s interest, including the consumer’s interest, that rather than having a dominant piracy market where music isn’t paid for and nothing gets reinvested, that music is intelligently monetised in the mobile space; maybe bundled into tariffs by network operators so it feels free to the consumer, but actually is just a great service being included in the price… If more people are consuming music legally then we can invest in new artists and everybody will enjoy the music more.”

View the full interview here