It's nice to hear that you write your own songs and don't mind other people performing them. It would make you smile a lot more if say, Jeremy Vine played one of your tracks on the radio, and it got picked up, and even more people downloaded it, or streamed it. You'd be very pleased, I expect. At what point would your airplay generating nothing but goodwill generate enough potential income that you
would start to pay attention? Perhaps if the revenue would be £100, you'd not bother. How about £1000? £10,000??
You could become wealthy, or a charity donator. The fact is your product has become an income stream. New guitar, new PA?
As you say, audiences do want popular tunes, and the notion that the copyrights don;t benefit the musicians is plain wrong - that is what PPL and PRS do - pay their members. PRS pay the composers, and PPL pay the musicians and the record companies in whatever proportions the people involved agreed on.
I know and can prove that a local covers band played a certain number by a well known rock band and that resulted in 5 people buying the original album and then more sales were generated in back catalogue sales, so the copyright holder benefited by us as a venue advertising their material resulting in tangible sales
With respect, I've done the same thing in my tribute band - we sing their songs (and pay the PRS out of the box office) and people who may not have heard some songs buy the original band's recordings) but that is NOT what the PRS is for. It's performance rights - you play the song and perform it, and the composer is legally entitled to a fee. That's it. Without PRS, they'd get nothing, and frankly, even with PRS, they still probably get nothing unless the venue does a return, and many don't. Some venues pay a blanket percentage based on ticket sales, others pay for exactly what they do. When I hear some of my music played - I always note it for PPL, because I might get something, but my PRS and PPL income has dried up in recent years, so they really only benefit the big names. Even so, I agree with the principle of me having the right to let people use it or not, as the rights are mine, and even though I too like hearing people using my material, I'd like the right to control it. Two years ago I got a few quid when one of my tracks was used in a dodgy movie made in California - who registered the use. What about if I had not wanted this kind of movie to use my music? Rights are all about personal choice.
I'm clearly biased, I know this - I'm sorry your pub failed, but PRS were doing their job in the same way the VAT people do theirs, the gaming machine people do theirs and the licensing authority do theirs.
