The US has a terrible record on privacy and as artists and workers in the UK, we deserve to have the option available to us not to have our details shared abroad with another country.

Roper Technologies is a large corporation based in the US, a country known for giving too much leeway in favour of big business.

If it acquires The Foundry, legal disputes risk being held on American soil and in favour of corporate power; this will prove a major risk to freedom of speech if someone decides to create a piece of work that goes against the political or financial interests of another part of the business and makes it easier for other powerful institutions to put financial pressure on The Foundry to censor views that it disagrees with or to misleadingly accuse independent artists of breaching copyright.

As artists and creatives in the UK and around the world, we deserve to have an independent company vouch for our civil rights and protect our work. The UK's data protection and privacy laws ensures that this information will not fall into the wrong hands.