Former Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey, of Teenage Kicks fame, used the London Calling music conference to demand a levy on gadgets that allow music to be copied.

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Appointed CEO of the British Music Rights (BMR) industry body in January, the former punk rocker told a keynote session: “To legislate for the copying of a CD on to an iPod might, at this point in the development of humanity, seem like a technical irrelevance, even bizarre. But if successful, this would create a new income stream, returning lost value to the artists and composers.”

Speaking to paidContent:UK (see video here), Sharkey later said the proposal was “exactly the same” as the license under which electronics makers must pay to use the MP3 format: “The organisation that licenses manufacturers to produce MPEG players has now licensed about 300 million devices around the world at about $2 each, so that generates about $600 million of business. Guess who’s not seen one single penny from that $600 million? The artists and the creators.

“The deal we’re proposing to government is, we would sit down and have personal negotiation with Steve Jobs, or whoever that might be, and approval for the scheme would lay with government.”