Pact, the trade body for independent content producers, has just launched a new membership category to cater specifically for producers and distributors of digital content and services.

Pact’s digital media membership will offer new and existing members a new range of services specifically tailored to support the needs of companies creating digital content. One of the key benefits will be an extensive range of bespoke contracts to support online productions, which will be made available to members to download for free.

Andrew Chitty, Deputy Chair of Pact and MD of Illumina Digital said the digital sector is rapidly evolving and Pact’s new membership category will provide increasingly essential support to producers in that space.

“We are moving into an age where intellectual property creation and content rights are increasingly important to the digital world, and there’s no better organisation to guide us through that than Pact,” he said.

Pact is the largest representative group for screen-based content producers in the UK and has long been fighting for a better commercial environment for those producing content within the multiplatform space. Pact’s lobbying and campaigning has been highly successful at winning ownership, rights, better terms and enforcing quotas for all types of independent media companies in recent years.

Other benefits of digital media membership include free legal and production advice, free downloadable digital contracts and agreements, access to BBC and C4-supported convergence programmes, subsidised multi-platform training, free events and networking with organisations such as MSN, Hulu and iTunes, the opportunity to be involved in working groups, regulatory advice and an insight into policy campaigns.

Pact’s senior policy executive Nick Underhill, who is leading the campaign, said: “Pact is the industry leader in protecting the commercial interests and rights of those in the content business so we are ideally positioned to extend our lobbying expertise further into the digital space. By leveraging our political influence and extensive contacts we will create substantial benefits for our new digital members.”

For further details see www.pact.co.uk/digital_media.