PRS\PPL Music Licensing - Know Your Rights

[Azimuth]

Hello All

I have recently been looking into PRS\PPL licensing and fairly enraged at the situation. I feel it is tantamount to a scandal that PRS\PPL have managed to enrich themselves by using a very questionable interpretation of the law to demand payment and I would say deliberately obfuscating the legality of the situation to continue to collect fees. The act as judge, jury and executioner and have no more authority than a private citizens.

I am thinking about starting an action group to address the situation. I think this is an issue that has fairly large impact on small business owners and one that as a small group we can address together and through the means of a website and petitions can get some clarity and a much fairer situation for all.

The intent of the law was never to stop mechanics listening to Radio 2 in their garage or a factory playing some 80's hits during the night shift. I would wager that the originally legislators would be horrified to find this was now the case.

To give you a picture of what I plan to achieve from the simple to the complex :

1) Get clear unbiased legal information about the situation. There are many parts of the law which are unclear and a lot of information online is marketing material from "PRS for Music" which makes millions from convincing business that they must pay in every possible scenario. The definition of "public performance" is critical here. Conveniently PRS for music clarifies it as pretty much every activity you could possibly imagine and even famously tried to fine a lady who was singing to herself. There is very little legal precedent for a lot of there claims although PRS outright claim it does. I could find no such judgement.

2) Create resources that can help people play music and avoid paying PRS\PPL license fees. At a simple level a playlist of music that is exempt might be useful, could we petition Spotify to support such a playlist and officially approve it as exempt from PRS\PPL fines. From my research the copyright they are enforcing expires after 50 years. This would mean a large backlog of music was unenforceable.

3) Petition the government to clarify the legal interpretation of parts of the law or indeed change the law.

I imagine there are 1000's of us who are sick of this but are totally isolated against a company that has a huge resources and legal power. Online is an impressive propaganda exercise which does nothing but to promote themselves and maximise profits.

Is there anyone with me? Use the poll to let me know.

I am very technically adept so I can take care of a lot of the web stuff if needs be. Any assistance\expressions of support would be helpful at this stage.

 

[Dimo]

Good luck! The licensing of music at work is a bit of a joke. While I agree that people need paying for their art and creativity, exactly how do PRS and PPL licenses ensure that royalties go to the right, due people? Is it just blanket distribution? Is some outfit keeping tabs on every playlist broadcast on every single radio station and online channel? Okay, so -

At work does a licensee have to state daily which radio station is being listed to? Surely not! Therefore how does the PRS/PPL have any notion of what fees are due to which artists?

What about YouTube? Suppose an almost infinite YouTube playlist is run at work via the internet? Oh, and I heard a story of an employee who sat in his van at lunchtime with the vehicle's radio on and was duly informed that he needed a licence because others could hear it.

 

[Matt Burns]

I agree, it appears to be a total scandal. If you look at their 2016 financial statements (available on their website) they collected £621.5m in royalties, of which, only £527.6m of that actually got paid to the copyright holders.
Most of the missing money evaporates in "costs" of which the main chunks are £39.7m on people (salaries) and £22.4m on "outsourced services". Insane amount of money. In 2016 they only had 632 employees which means this non-profit are paying an average salary of £62,816!

The highest paid director (Robert Ashcroft?) was paid £962,000 in 2016 (not including the £25k pension contribution).

Non-profit?

 

[XRN]

Because of PRS/PPL I have removed all music playing from my shop. It is incredibly boring to sit here hour after hour in silence. The fan helps. When people ask me why I tell them about the exorbitant fees I had initially paid to PRS/PPL and they were shocked. I'd love to play quiet soft music, but what can be done?

 

[Dimo]

I'd love to play quiet soft music, but what can be done?

You can get royalty-free music or entirely free music. Here's an example (30 minutes of relaxing Celtic music for $1 - https://soothingrelaxation.bandcamp.com/track/relaxing-celtic-music-86) and there are many others.

Browse YouTube.

 

[Bob Dunn]

Im not affected by these bandits as I dont have any use for music in my business but a lot of years ago I was part of a group where a so called Government authority decided they would impose what their interpretation of their legislation was on us. A few of us got together and paid a barrister to examine the legislation and tell us what we could and could not do and what actual authority this Government department had over us. Surprise surprise.... They had virtually no authority to impose any of their "regulations" on us. Was great karma telling them where to get off.

 

[Azimuth]

Thanks for the replies. I think one thing that gets me is that there is a total lack of information outside of PRSforMusiccom. I have spent many hours researching and still have more questions than answers. Every conversation in regard to this topic is proceeded by a chaotic storm of opinions raging from "tell them to f** off" to "Just pay them".

This situation benefits PRS for Music no end as when individuals feel lost and confused and without any concrete answers from any authority without a financial interest they end up just going for the safest option either paying or working in silence. This has resulted in a de facto tax on professionals playing music period. At no point do I imagine that our elected representatives intended for this to happen. It is more a combination of legal wrangling and aggressive business practices.

I see the action group taking on the following three pronged approach :

Educate :

Give people information, trying to assist them in making a decision free of financially motivated coercion. This could involve recommending playlists of royalty free music or royalty free radio. I see these suggestions come up on forums but there is no central repository of this information.

Can you listen to classic FM ?

Can we get Spotify to identify PRS free playlists?

What albums can be played free of these threats.

Legal :

Discuss and confirm the following.

I) There is no legislation that states music played in a workplace or even for that mater in public has to result in payment to a copyright holder. The term used in the 1988 legislation is "public performance". There are many court cases however where PRS has tried to extend the definition of this term to include as bigger demographic as possible. However these court papers are so old that they cannot easily be found and researched. One famous case involves playing a gramophone in a factory of 600 employees in the 1940's this was years before the 1988 legislation and is very different from a man with a van scenarios.

II) There is a case to be argued that the PRS license has already been paid. BBC, YouTube, Spotify have all negotiated and paid a PRS for music license to broadcast. Subsequent demands are then made to individuals lower down for "re-broadcasting", this is highly dubious in my opinion. Does the BBC PRS rebroadcast license only apply to non-professionals ? I don't think so, so what law is being broken. The BBC license covers your employees. So why would do you need to pay again ???

Political :

The current situation is that a single agency has a near 100% monopoly on performance music rights. They are abusing this position to demand payment from anyone who listens to music etc... in a workplace. As far as I can tell they don't provide choice or information about how to avoid the fine or evidence that you have breached it.

It appears that simply "listening to music" is enough for them to conclude you are due a fine and then aggressively demand payment.

This is clearly against consumer choice and needs to be addressed.

The current situation is untenable and I think MPs would be willing to hear us out on this.

PRS for Music are fond of quoting court cases from the early part of the 20th century before YouTube, Before Spotify, Before the Internet, often before radio music was widely available. It is about time I think that they were put there position out clearly in the 21st century for all to judge and debate. I imagine the conclusion would be very different as if it was not the BBC should surely be obliged to mention that listening at work to XXX song could incur additional costs like they do with phone ins.

 

[DavidWH]

I read somewhere that for small companies, there's a much cheaper licence, a quick google finds this: https://www.prsformusic.com/press/2009/prs-for-music-reduces-tariff-for-small-businesses

and this from PPL - http://www.ppluk.com/smallworkplaces

I doubt either company tells you this when they cold call you, hound & repeatedly harass you despite repeatedly saying you don't listen to music.

 

[Azimuth]

I doubt either company tells you this when they cold call you, hound & repeatedly harass you despite repeatedly saying you don't listen to music.

Interesting I have not seen that before, however I would dispute that in a situation of 4 employees in a commercial space listening to music was a "public performance" and should actually be paying PRS zero. PRS has a very good marketing department and articles like this (published on their website) are there to promote PRS as a force for good as they probably know that if people started to challenge them the whole thing would fall down like a house of cards.

I don't believe there is any legal case that PRS has won unless there is a genuine member of public involved apart from the 1940 case with a factory of 600 workers and that involved the owner playing gramophone recordings ... so slightly different.

However thank you for useful information and hopefully when we do have a website listing prices will help people make a informed choice and not overpay like you say.

 

[DavidWH]

This subject has been discussed before, and @The Byre has made some excellent comments from the opposite side of the fence. Perhaps he could enlighten you as to what PPL/PRS does for artists/composers.

 

[Azimuth]

This subject has been discussed before, and @The Byre has made some excellent comments from the opposite side of the fence. Perhaps he could enlighten you as to what PPL/PRS does for artists/composers.

I think this is missing the point of this discussion. We don't dispute that PPL\PRS has rights to enforce the copyrights of their clients. The problem is that many businesses dispute their interpretation of copyright laws. What they do with the money they obtain isn't hugely relevant to the legal discussion although I concede it has some relevance to a political\moral one.

Does the music industry require an effective levy on playing music in the workplace in order to survive and if so is the best way to do it through an unaccountable agency, I think it is time the public decide with full exposure to the facts.

I am aware of the large amount of resource that PRS puts into PR campaigns to promote their mission and I am quite frankly unmoved, as a large part of that mission seems to be to perpetrate the misunderstanding that they have the unquestionable legal right to levy a fee on anyone playing a radio\music in a workplace. This is completely false but I see it perpetrated in many places on the internet from the BBC to even government websites.

A lot of people are under the misunderstanding that PRS and PPL are the same as the TV license authority or some sort of government body but just for music in a workplace. They are not and have never been. They have no more government backing than I do.

The rot is widespread with government literature and the BBC perpetrating falsehoods such as :

"The law requires businesses that play any recorded music in public to get licenses from the Performing Right Society (PRS), which collects fees and pays royalties to composers and their publishers."

- From the BBC Magazine.

This is absolutely false and I am of the opinion that a lot of this information is distributed by PRS and their agents, this quote alone from a organisation that people trust should identify that there is a problem here.

In case people don't know it is totally legal to play royalty free music or music that was copyright which has now expired publicly without charge and the BBC should let the public know this.

In addition PRS for Music does not have exclusive rights to all copyright music, yes they have a near monopoly but it should certainly not be taken as read that all music copyright is managed through them. For instance all Welsh Language music rights have a different agency.

In theory if you listened to BBC radio and BBC radio wales that had some songs in welsh you would need to pay PRS for Music and Potentially the Welsh Manament company as well. The situation as it stands now is quite frankly absurd.

 

[The Byre]

If you guys only knew what the F. is really going on!

In case people don't know it is totally legal to play royalty free music or music that was copyright which has now expired publicly without charge.

Then do it! Stop baitchin and do it! You're so full of mouth, then hire a few f**king bands, write a few thousand songs with arrangements and hire musicians and studios and do it!

Boo Hoo! They want money for their music! It costs tens of thousands to make the simplest song and you want to use it for free. So can I get your website for free? Hey, I saw it and it looked good, so will you give me one just like it for free?

How about giving me a free car? You sell cars, so give me a free f**king car, Mother F.

It's a bit like Getty Images and the fact that they want money for their pics! You want what you have seen on line for free! Well that ain't gonna happen!

Listen, Mother F. I saw an elephant, so how about giving me a f**king free elephant! Where's my free elephant, Mother F.?

"It's an outrage! I have to pay for something that cost you hundreds of thousands? You spent millions getting that act on the road and you expect me to pay? Are you F. Crazy? It is my right to exploit your commercial product that cost you staggering sums of money and to do so for F-all."

Tip - you want to have background music in your business - hire a f**king band!

Now compare the costs!

Oh look! All these workshops are happy to pay for tools, lifts, software, taxes, water, electricity, but ask them to pay a pittance for something that costs hundreds of thousands or millions to produce and it's a f**king outrage!

It costs c.a. £6,000 to produce a Mercedes E-Class, so I want you to go to your local Merc dealership and offer them £6k for a 200D. The day they say yes, is the day you have the right to steal my property!

 

[ADW]

You can happily use my website and grab whatever else you like if you allow me to get paid best part of a million for over seeing that option.

 

[Azimuth]

@The Byre what your response has done has highlighted why we need impartial information available. Heaven forbid they ask someone like you, who was previously mentioned as someone who might have interesting insight but now proceeds to aggressively let forth the most ludicrous and off topic rant about a free car. The german deal transaction you use as comparison is not in any way connected to copyright law in relation to sound recordings. There are many things in life that cost money to make but we do not legally have to pay. The reasons for this demand knowledge in areas of politics, law and history. I suggest you study these areas to gain further insight. To just post your previous rant you have used technology which cost billions to make for nothing... how wonderful.

In regard to "just f*** do it" that is exactly what we are doing here. Thank you for the encouragement.

 

[The Byre]

The BBC pays for music. Every time they play a song, that fact is logged and the owner of that song gets paid. They get paid by you, as a license fee payer. In exchange for that payment, you have the right to enjoy their output for TV and radio privately. Other radio stations (most of whom are owned by Bauer Media) pay from their advertising revenue. They gain a commercial benefit from the music, so they pay for that benefit - and they pay a great deal.

If a shop plays music to ease the stress of shopping and put customers in the mood to relax and (hopefully buy something) they too gain a commercial benefit from that music.

Music is not free. It is somebody's private property. Musicians and others, such as labels, distributors and other rights holders have, in the UK, got together and formed/joined performing rights societies to cover all aspects of remuneration. There are c.a. 30 such societies world-wide and it is the members who pay the wages of those working for these societies.

If you own the intellectual and mechanical rights to a popular recording, these rights payments form a significant source of income.

The music industry across Planet Earth asks for tiny sums of money, in exchange for the commercial use of a product that costs a great deal to produce. Roughly speaking, a recording that hopes to make it into the top 40, costs about £250,000 to produce and market in the UK and about $3m in the US.

Just recording a song at normal commercial rates costs between £50,000 and £100,000. If we strip out all fees for almost everything and just do things for 'mates-rates' you are still looking at costs of about £15,000.

The equipment is expensive. The desk can cost over £300,000, a good microphone costs £3,000, the average is about £800 and you will need lots of them. The monitoring system will set you back at least £10,000 in the mix room and the same again for the mastering suite. Try building a sound-proof studio with a typical 100 sq m live room and see what it costs. Now go out and buy a concert grand, a vintage Hammond organ and all the other bits and bobs that go to make up a studio. Few commercial studios get built for under £1m. Most recently, Gorbals Sound in Glasgow cost £2m, before that, British Grove cost £7m.

Neither is ever going to make a profit. These are labours of love and simultaneously, works of art. These are high churches, built by dedicated people to their god - music.

And that's the cheap end of the music business. Marketing is the expensive end.

There was a time when having a hit record set you up for life. Back in the 50s, a popular record could earn the artist £10,000 from the UK market - enough to buy ten middle-class, detached houses in a good area. By the 60s, you still got c.a. £10,000, but that was enough to buy six houses. Fast forward to today and guess what? Yes, it's still about £10,000.

Back in then, nobody cared too deeply about performing rights, as music really still paid OK. Now every penny counts!

Records are produced as visiting cards, to enable live touring and a very lucky few get to earn from the recording, via sales and sync' licenses for things like advertising.

That's why all these old rockers are having to put away their Zimmer frames and dust off the Fender Telecaster - touring is all they have left. They need to tour to put food on the table.

Yes, there are a select few that have earned staggering sums of money. But that is a very select few and only those who were in the game during a certain period and were able to stick at it for decades, sleeping in the back of Transit vans and playing university canteens and pub back-rooms. It takes at least ten years to become an overnight success - usually longer.

The rest just get a couple of hundred for doing the line-up of shame on 'Never Mind the Buzzcocks'.

You are whining about the PRS being unrepresentative of the people and not democratically accountable. Of course they are not - they are not supposed to be accountable to you - they are accountable to me! That's me and all the other members who have IP registered with them.

My lawyers and my accountants are not there for your benefit, but for the benefit of my company. The same goes for the PRS.

My company pays the wages of the CEO of the PRS - my company and thousands of others. If we don't like his wage package, we are perfectly within our rights to toddle into the AGM and table a motion to have the wages altered. It's none of your business!

The PRS is there to represent those members of the music business that have joined the PRS and the PPL and have registered material with them. They also represent all the interests of musicians that have joined other performing rights societies around the World, such as Harry Fox, GEMA and others.

You have no more right to complain about the PRS not representing your rights, than I have the right to complain that your lawyer is not representing my rights.

You don't have to buy your music from the PRS. You can commission it yourself, you can go to other bodies, you can buy royalty free music, you can stand in the middle of your shop and serenade the customers yourself.

What you can't do, is steal my property and commercially exploit my property.

 

[Azimuth]

I think you are to some extent constructing a straw man argument here, which is exactly my problem with the whole issue.

"Music is not free. It is somebody's private property." I'll take it the sentiment you are trying to express is :

"Copying and playing of music is restricted by copyright law"... We are not disputing that.

In exchange for that payment, you have the right to enjoy their output for TV and radio privately.

I would like to see the agreement the BBC has that states their broadcast can only be listened to legally by non-professionals. I feel this would not stand in court as it is practically unenforceable and is without precedent. Can you name one other scenario where a public broadcast can only legally be listened to by a sectioned demographic of the listening public. If this is the case broadcasts should almost certainly come with a disclaimer "If you are listening to this at work further fees may be payable"

"The PRS is there to represent those members". Yes, which is why using their resources they have influenced the public perception of the situation so heavily in their favour. This is the situation I am looking to address. Providing information that is not biased in favour of PRS and their members. Would you be happy if the RAC was the only resource of car insurance information, demanded extremely high fees and then decreed that you were due no payment when you did have an accident. PRS has every right to represent their members but we do not have to swallow it as you seem to be advocating.

"You don't have to buy your music from the PRS. You can commission it yourself, you can go to other bodies, you can buy royalty free music, you can stand in the middle of your shop and serenade the customers yourself."

Making the above information more readily available is one of the things we are trying to achieve, the above statement is not understood by many small businesses that receive PRS\PPL demands. Since the public forum is dominated by PRS literature and even inaccurate information from places like the BBC and gov that have been sourced from said PRS literature it is time that the business community gets together and builds are resource in regard to this.

You last statement "You can serenade the customers yourself" would almost certainly require a license from PPL. I say again, the current situation is clearly absurd.

 

[UKSBD]

They get paid by you, as a license fee payer. In exchange for that payment, you have the right to enjoy their output for TV and radio privately. Other radio stations (most of whom are owned by Bauer Media) pay from their advertising revenue. They gain a commercial benefit from the music, so they pay for that benefit - and they pay a great deal.

I just don't understand this.

If I am not a licence payer and I walk along the road and hear some music being played from a radio am I technically breaking any copyright laws?

 

[The Byre]

If I am not a licence payer and I walk along the road and hear some music being played from a radio am I technically breaking any copyright laws?

Of course not, for a variety of reasons!

"Music is not free. It is somebody's private property." I'll take it the sentiment you are trying to express is :

"Copying and playing of music is restricted by copyright law"... We are not disputing that.

No, that should read - "Copying and playing of music is restricted by copyright law, because it is somebody's private property!"

As a society, we have decided that music should be freely available, but not that it is available for free.

You don't get to watch movies for free. You can't go to your local Vue movie house and demand to be let in for free, you can't watch Sky, Amazon, Netflix et al, without paying a subscription, you can't watch a BR disk without buying it and you can't watch TV without paying a license fee and having advertising.

Amazing entertainment is today available for pennies. £10 and you can shove on the old 3D glasses and go to the local Vue and be immersed for two hours of brilliant entertainment, as them space-monkeys do unspeakable things to Americans.

Wait a year and for the same price, you can buy the BR disk, sit up close to the old 4K, crank-up the 5.1 Genelecs and annoy the neighbours. Wait another year and you get to watch it for free, but only in stereo and with several lavatory breaks.

But what you can't do, is to commercially exploit that movie. You can't show it in your pub or shop. The commercial exploitation rights belong first to the movie houses, then the BR and DVD distributors, then to the pay-per-view, then subscription channels and lastly the 'free-to-air' channels buy them in giant packages of a few hundred movies, for two years.

If this chain of exploitation is not there and the movie studios do not get a return on the vast sums it costs to make 'War of the Planet of the Apes' then the next film will be a hi-def video, featuring a man in a gorilla suit in Studio 8 at the BBC.

So why do you think that music should be different?

 

[Bob Dunn]

My home has a tv licence. It allows me to watch live TV and listen to radio broadcasts whereever I am in the UK. If I go to the barbers and he has BBC Radio 2 playing in the salon then I cant see why the shop has to have a PRS licence to let me listen to the output that I have already paid a licence fee for and am entitled to listen to.

 

[Azimuth]

My home has a tv licence. It allows me to watch live TV and listen to radio broadcasts whereever I am in the UK. If I go to the barbers and he has BBC Radio 2 playing in the salon then I cant see why the shop has to have a PRS licence to let me listen to the output that I have already paid a licence fee for and am entitled to listen to.

Very good point!

Yes this actually has been debated many times and a lot of legal heads have suggested they are in agreement that they are actually charging for the same thing twice. Not that any business owners would be made aware of this in PRS literature and I don't believe it has ever been challenged in court. The concept is described as a "New Audience" in copyright journals. It is my opinion that the PRS agreement with the BBC would cover their entire audience not just the non-professional audience and therefore business owners can say that listening to the BBC at least requires no fee as it has already been paid by the BBC.

If the BBC has a license to broadcast to "non-professionals" only then that triggers many other questions around how one broadcast to an individual audience using the public airwaves that owned by the British people.

Could I write a contract to a train station that said you can play this music ... but only to women. Then proceed to demand all the men pay a separate fee for using the station ?. On examination the whole thing is riddled with flaws.

One of the tasks of the action group should be to seek clarification of this. Could we for instance obtain through a freedom of information request the contract signed by PRS and the BBC and could this provide clarification ??

 

[KM-Tiger]

The concept is described as a "New Audience" in copyright journals.

And it's not really as simple as defining a "New Audience" as existing in a place of business.

My home is my place of business. Do I need a licence to listen to the radio in my office?
Or it's OK if I leave the door open and hear the radio from the domestic part of the house?

 

[Jeff FV]

BBC has that states their broadcast can only be listened to legally by non-professionals.

f the BBC has a license to broadcast to "non-professionals" only

OP - you state your aim is to clarify the matter, a noble cause and one to be supported.

With this remit in mind, you have twice stated that the BBC says their broadcasts can only be listened to by non-professionals.

Perhaps I am a little arrogant, but I would describe myself as a "professional"

Are you saying I'm not to listen to the BBC? In that case, I suspect that many of those listening to Eddy Mair on PM this evening shouldn't be.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I agree with both sides byre with inside knowledge of the industry and the other side that the law is to say very poor

flaws do exist in copyright and title to music and it would be beneficial to both parties if this was clarified by a token law case

One area I do disagree with is the ability for them to fine you for previous listing without proof of the act or timeframe of use

 

[NickGrogan]

Following the logic that it's transmitted then it's already been paid for, why not have a TV in your shop?

Record Game of Thrones and play it the next morning, anyone that hasn't got Sky is going to be pleased. Brings people into your shop and keeps them there for a least an hour.

Surely if you think radio is free, TV should be the same? If not, why not?

 

[Azimuth]

Following the logic that it's transmitted then it's already been paid for, why not have a TV in your shop?

Record Game of Thrones and play it the next morning, anyone that hasn't got Sky is going to be pleased. Brings people into your shop and keeps them there for a least an hour.

Surely if you think radio is free, TV should be the same? If not, why not?

I would say the law in this case is quite clear. It is because Sky has a license to show Game of Thrones solely to their subscribers which is a defined audience managed by encrypting the content and only distribution decryption keys to valid subscribers.

They do not have a public broadcast license for Game of Thrones. The BBC on the other hand does have public broadcast rights to music they play in the UK. However it is important to note that you cannot record and re-broadcast BBC content that is not permissible by law and not something I am advocating.

However what I would think makes scene is listening to the BBC at works comes under the terms of the BBC public broadcast terms. It is not legally defined as a re-broadcast, I see no precedent for this anywhere.

So you are liable neither to pay the BBC any additional money than the TV license (it includes funding the radio by extension) or in my opinion PRS who have agreed terms based on the BBC publicly broadcasting the songs to the public including professionals.

Just because a business owner owns and turns on the radio does not change that fact that it is a public broadcast they are receiving.

 

[KM-Tiger]

So you are liable neither to pay the BBC any additional money than the TV license (it includes funding the radio by extension) or in my opinion PRS who have agreed terms based on the BBC publicly broadcasting the songs to the public including professionals.

That assumes business premises have a TV licence, which many do not if they do not have a TV.

 

[Azimuth]

After doing some research Sky have different licenses for business and domestic customers.

The BBC however has a blanket public broadcast license.

Since the BBC has no business package\license, how is it the PRS have negotiated a deal solely with their non professional customers only ?

The same is true to an extent with YouTube and Spotify as I assume in there terms they do not have you identify if you are going to be playing the music in a professional setting. Although I have not researched this.

I feel the whole thing is an exercise in legal obfuscation.

In regard to a token case it is interesting to note that PRS has no recent judgement against a business that I know of and many people in forums have said they have dropped cases against them when it came to court.

I think the current situation suits them perfectly and they have no intention of having the spotlight put on the legal platform with which their demands are made. Why would they, they have managed to make workplace music synonymous with their brand. No wonder they award there top managers £500,000 + per year.

The point about the TV license\Radio that has just been made is another issue. Believe it or not Radio is paid for by TV owners. So in fact it is a mute point whether you own a TV License or not. This is an archaic practice but the legality of it is quite clear. TV license holders pay for the radio for all members of the public.

One thing which is interesting is the difference between "public" and "non-public" business settings. There seems to be some legal precedents for judgement in favour PRS based on members of the public being in the area of music being played.

However there is none I can find in a purely work setting apart from a 1942 case I think with 600 employees and before the current legislation.

However PRS seems to be glossing over this fact and now heavily imply on their website that any workplace regardless of public access needs to pay.

 

[paulears]

This comes up and people get so righteous about it, outraged and really angry about music - keep in mind that there is now an intellectual property court system similar to the county court system, because the people who create the stuff people are getting outraged about actually belongs to them, and maybe the idea of somebody using it free is outrageous to them - the idea you create something, and some bugger comes along and uses it for nothing? Maybe you don't mind this - perhaps you want to give your material away for free, or maybe just to good causes you approve of?

All of this is perfectly acceptable.

The restaurant who produces a brilliant and clever menu, or promotional flyer - then discovers somebody has liked it so much, they photoshopped out the name of your business and stuck theirs in? That's fine too is it?

PRS and PPL are simply agents. Music producers sign up (that's me, by the way) because I have no way of knowing if people are using my music in Wales, or London, or even America - so I cannot police it myself. I am very happy PRS exists. Part of my business is playing the music people use in public shows - theatres, events, festivals, and I'm paying 1% of my box office ticket sales to them to distribute to the people who produced the music. Sometimes, I even play some of my own music, but because my music is very unpopular compared to Abba, I rarely get much. So you could argue I lose out even more.

If you use something that does not belong to you - why should music be exempt? If you photocopy a photograph or painting and stick it on your wall in your cafe - is that OK? If you find a poem some little old lady wrote last year up in Scotland - can you post it up on the internet, with some sad music, or use it at your grannies funeral? No = because it isn't yours to do what you like with.

All the stuff about the BBC and TV licences comes up. The BBC do not own the music they play - they pay a licence to broadcast it. The owner sets the rules. PRS don't even represent everyone - some artistes wish to handle it themselves. They are perfectly at liberty to do it.

Every time this subject comes up everyone feels hard done to - why should they have to pay, bla bla - PRS are money grabbing this and that. They are not - they represent people who CHOOSE to join. If you find music that PRS/PPL do not represent you can play it and tell PRS/PPL to go away. However - this doesn't remove the need to get permission. Some music is free. The music may be nice to listen to, but you won't know any of it to sing along to.

With iTunes and Spotify paying so little to the music producers, artistes are very pleased with anything PRS collect.

Some artistes are also string minded about what exactly their music is used for. A vegan singer will NOT want their music played in a butchers shop. That's their music and their right.

PRS is the musical equivalent of Getty Images - another agency slammed for heavy handed tactics in representing their members rights, and coming down hard on people who use copyright images - something the courts are very well aware of.

It really doesn't matter what people think of PRS - what they do is legal, established and tested in court. People make their livings from producing music. It mays mortgages and is what they do - often as a proper VAT paying business. Why is there product ok to steal, but chocolates from the chocolate factory not?

 

[UKSBD]

The problem is nobody appears to give out clear information.

I've just been on the TV licence site and according to that if a business has a licence, up to 15 people can watch or listen at the premises.

If that's the case why does a business need to pay PRS and the likes?

If it isn't the case, why doesn't tv licence site make it clearer

 

[paulears]

That's fairly simple - the BBC Licence is the terms they have to do to broadcast it. Rights are always split into the supply and the consume sections - sometimes they're out of alignment. A hotel with up to 15 bedrooms (called oddly, units) pay the same price as somebody at home. This, if we use the example is what causes grief. Your TV licence is the licence to install and operate legally, television receiving equipment. Your 15 bedrooms can have their own TV set and the £147 licence is simply to be able to turn it on. Content, however, is what the licence TV receiver displays to the people who 'consume' it. This has nothing to do with your TV licence, which is just for the equipment. If you could somehow lock down your system so that it only showed a channel that had absolutely no music content ever, you would not need to pay the artistes or production companies or record labels.

The nearest I can get as a analogy is that filling your car with petrol that the Government stick loads of tax on doesn't replace the need for the annual road tax - or whatever it's called nowadays.

The BBC pay to use the music in their production - needle time being what costs radio organisations huge amounts of money. That's them paying for it being used, by them. You must pay for the music you[\i] use.

This is often seen as unfair - but the money goes to different organisations and uses.

In fact, historically there was even a charge to copy music from one format to another - mechanical copyright. DJs who do weddings and parties buy licences to let them play music - well, most do, and that is complex too.

Treat music as a consumable item, stick it in the expenses of running your business with all the others. Music is treated as something that should be free, which I understand, but last year, I received nothing at all from PRS or PPL - my stuff just wasn't used - well, perhaps used but not included in the sampling? Just how it is?

 

[KM-Tiger]

The BBC pay to use the music in their production - needle time being what costs radio organisations huge amounts of money. That's them paying for it being used, by them. You must pay for the music you[\i] use.

So even though I have a TV licence, I must pay to listen to the radio?

 

[paulears]

To the best of my knowledge, the requiement to pay the BBC for a radio licence was dropped a very long time ago - so your radio can be used without any involvement at all with the BBC - you do need to pay PRS, and perhaps PPL too - that's for consuming.

Don't want to push it very far, but loads of people pay their PRS with no knowledge of PPL - which might also want a bit of your dosh too ..... sorry!

 

[UKSBD]

That just about sums up why I said nothing is clear

I should think most people who buy a TV licence thinks it gives them the rights to watch and listen to things on their TV

Where as, we as the end consumer, have absolutely no idea about any individual licencing restrictions any channels have with the copyright owners.

What's to stop PRS and all the others eventually going after private individuals as well as businesses?

 

[ecommerce84]

Where I used to work we occasionally had letters from PRS and just binnned them and had no follow up or threats at all.

This was a shop with half a dozen employees and a radio.

Do they actively chase businesses, or is this the norm?

 

[paulears]

Nothing at all - but, like most things legal, taking action against people who don't have money isn't that sensible. On here we frequently get people who didn't know their Ltd Company had to pay corporation tax, or that they didn't know VAT had serious implications, or that they thought they were self-employed and now turned out not to have been with tax issues. If you are a business, you are supposed to research things and do it right. You talk about PRS as some sort of entity who 'go after' people - but that's actually their purpose - collecting legitimate unpaid dues for their members. I accept that people perhaps are ignorant they should be paying it - but rights is a really important income for some people. One person often mentioned is Brian Bennett, the Shadows original drummer. He's amazingly good at writing short snappy jingles and film music, that's what he does. All over the world, people do it properly - sometimes you have no idea how your music suddenly got used in a video shot in California, but the the statement arrives and you made a few quid. It's how it works.

I can't see PRS every being interested in genuine home use - it would cost more to collect than it generates. They have collected money which they are unable to distribute - sometimes people just get lost, but when they surface, they get their rights money - even years later, which is of course, their money, not PRS's who are simply collectors and agents.

Do they actively chase businesses, or is this the norm?

They tend to do it in small hits - so a chain is noticed, or maybe one of their reps notices a town where there are very few stickers, so they make visits. They realise many people bin the stuff, and the business reality is that somebody decides if they should push you or not. No idea how they decide, but as a member, I'd not want them to waste members money?

 

[UKSBD]

I can't see PRS every being interested in genuine home use

The thing is there shouldn't be these grey areas.

Imagine what would happen if they did decide to go after home users.

I've never bothered reading the small print of the 100's of different channels I receive, I and everyone else in the country, could owe thousands of pounds.

 

[paulears]

Most cases of private rights use are taken care of by the wording on CDs - been tried and tested for a long time.
Have a look here at how rights are presented to the people who produce the music.

https://www.copyrighthouse.co.uk/copyright/music-copyright.htm


In general, music products tend to use these types of copyright statement:

"All rights reserved"
The simplest and tightest - a simple warning that there are rights, and they're reserved.

Others tend to assume differences between home personal and business usage. This is probably the most common.

"Any unauthorised broadcasting, public performance, copying or re-recording is prohibited "

This adds in the word unauthorised - so still means you need permission.

Cleary, this is how some artistes - Enya - being a good example, prevent their music being used. PRS cannot help, nor their record company - they control their material.

There's an folklore tale about somebody from Tim Rice's management company being on holiday abroad and seeing an amateur version of one of his shows that was currently in the West End being put on - on a holiday island. It turned out his mother had told them Tim wouldn't mind. He did!

The small print on VHS movies onwards to DVD has had a list of places you cannot show these videos - often schools, ships and prisons, and movies were mentioned, yet one place they were very popular. Sky get very strict with pubs who show Sky Sports on a personal account and not a business one.

The real decider for legal action now is cost and risk, not the deed. Taking a pub to court is likely to generate many thousands of pounds, while the local WI showing episodes of Mary Berry's programmes to the Jam Makers Circle isn't. Both examples are not allowed.

In the case of software, you often find, if you read the label, all you have bought is the rights to use the software, you have not actually purchased it!

 

[The Byre]

The OP has made a series of (IMO) deliberately misleading statements. We can only guess what his motivation might be for doing this, but were he and others like him to get their way, they would have to right to steal property from a section of society that is remarkably poorly paid. This type of campaign is usually run by those who seek to commercially exploit that property for their own gain.

Typical statements include -

There is no legislation that states music played in a workplace or even for that mater in public has to result in payment to a copyright holder.

The BBC license covers your employees.

and both of these statements are not true. You cannot play copyrighted music in the workplace under the licensing terms of the BBC (or any other broadcaster) and the BBC license has absolutely nothing to do with that workplace and your employees are not covered, directly or indirectly, or even by implication, by any license fee.

To suggest otherwise is to utter a deliberate falsehood.

The license fee is only there to finance public broadcasting. It has nothing to do with music copyright.

As a result of this type of campaign by a select group pursuing their own interests, some people are confused, simply because such campaigns deliberately spread falsehoods and obfuscation. They seek to mix and confuse two separate things, namely (1) the private use and enjoyment of music that has already been paid for, for that specific purpose - and (2) the commercial exploitation of music owned by others, for which the law requires the business to pay.

As a result of this type of campaign, those unfamiliar with the situation, make statements like these -

If I go to the barbers and he has BBC Radio 2 playing in the salon then I cant see why the shop has to have a PRS licence to let me listen to the output that I have already paid a licence fee for and am entitled to listen to.

So even though I have a TV licence, I must pay to listen to the radio?

The thing is there shouldn't be these grey areas. Imagine what would happen if they did decide to go after home users.

People are confused, not because the situation is in itself confusing, but because people like the OP have systematically and repeatedly spread falsehoods and have deliberately confused the two issues mentioned above, namely private use and commercial exploitation.

In fact, the situation is remarkably simple -

Firstly, the private enjoyment of music is completely free in every country I can think of. In some, you must pay a license fee, but that has nothing to do with music. It is there to finance public broadcasting. Mentioning the BBC or any other broadcaster, public or private is a complete red-herring. You can listen to music anywhere and everywhere and nobody wants you to pay for that enjoyment. That is because nearly all sources of music for private enjoyment (e.g. radio, TV, CDs, downloads, streaming) have already bought and paid for a license for the use of the music. For example, a single play of a song on Radio One or Two will pay the copyright owner about £50. That rather small sum covers the private enjoyment of listeners.

Secondly, the commercial exploitation of music requires a further license. Playing copyrighted music to customers, employees, public gatherings, or any other commercial environment, all falls under commercial exploitation. Again, it is irrelevant where the music came from. It could be a broadcaster, or it could be your iPhone - the mechanical source of the music is totally irrelevant. The performing rights license that a broadcaster (or any other source) pays for, does not, nor has it ever in the past, included any form of further exploitation, be that rebroadcasting, playing in public places, factories or anywhere else.

It is an integral part of this type of campaign, to confuse and obfuscate a remarkably simple situation. Whether the OP is part and parcel of this kind of movement that seeks to make other people's intellectual property, theirs to use and exploit - or whether he is just another victim of this kind of campaign, who genuinely thinks that the situation has 'grey areas' where there are none, remains to be seen and is very much his own business.

 

[UKSBD]

who genuinely thinks that the situation has 'grey areas' where there are none

The grey area is the definition of Public

Are members of my family members of my family or Public?
Are a small group of my friends a small group of my friends or Public?
Is a Companies workforce a Companies workforce or Public?

 

[The Byre]

The grey area is the definition of Public.

No it is not! The term 'public place' has been defined repeatedly in various acts and judgements.

It is also totally irrelevant for this issue. It is an integral part of this campaign to deliberately confuse the issue with things that are completely irrelevant, such as the TV licensing fee, definition of public and private gatherings and so on.