@gallois I understand that, however there is no basis in law for their practice of issuing licenses to anyone, for anything, whatsoever.
The ‘licensing’ paperwork they send out is a speculative invoice, nothing more. However it is intended to deceive people by looking ‘official’ and most people just pay it, under the impression that you’re required to by law like you are with the TV licence.
Every instance in which a song that is played on the radio or on Spotify (or wherever) is paid for at the time of playing. The radio situation is particular stupid – it being a free-to-receive broadcast by licensing it to be played you have effectively licensed it to be heard by anyone anywhere. Why a self-appointed organisation purporting to represent all musicians should feel it has the right to charge individuals and businesses for hearing music that someone has already paid for, and paid for that particular instance of playing, strikes me as completely insane.
The situation persists because the charge is small and most people don’t realise it has little or no basis in law. No-one with deep pockets has any interest in fighting it and the music industry, with expensive lawyers, would fight all the way.
The law the PRS licences by is called copyright law and is perfectly legal to issue licences to cover that.
You say the music has already been paid for, when in fact only the recording is paid for when used on the radio and although this is provided as a playlist generally it is paid over as a block amount and the society distributes in the case you refer to as a royalty to the artists and record companies concerned.
The PRS wouldn’t normally try to sell a licence for private use. What is private use was determined in law over 20 years ago, although like all laws there is ambiguity.
But basically it says that a venue has to have a music licence if it is to play music for commercial reasons. Such would be a hall which is rented out to host a wedding.
The money collected in this way is distributed to the composers of the music and the publishers who own the rights to the music.
Without these and similar arrangements in other countries artists like Bruce Springsteen would not have been able to sell the publishing rights to his music for half a billion dollars recently.
But that is the top end of the scale. Most are not that well off. At the other end of the scale writers of what were once hit songs which when they were written might only have netted the composer a few thousand pounds are now providing a small pension of a few pounds a year.
Surely you cannot begrudge them that. After all people are still getting pleasure from their songs many many years after they wrote them.
I once received a letter from my bank in the UK addressed to “The Personal Representative of Mr. Capitaine, deceased” about closing my accounts. I went to the local branch and made a scene, which was unfair on the cashier, but worth it for the reaction from the queue. I was quickly ushered into a back room, where the manager made me prove who I was; I made him prove I was dead. It transpired they had mixed me up with an elderly relation, and it was resolved almost instantly. Reading the article and Gallois’s post it sounds like I had a lucky escape. On reflection, being there in person, embarrassing the bank in public, going straight to management, and being recently bereaved were deciding factors.
I’ve never dealt with PRS, but I have had numerous cold calls at work from PPL (basically the same thing) and found them aggressive, argumentative and persistent, extending to harassment and intimidation. I don’t know what their legal basis is, but their methods are definitely unethical if not illegal.
The UK TV licencing enforcement sends regular very threatening letters to those who have no TV Licence, but who have no device for receiving TV signals.
One included: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” I have 15 years of them saved.
The tolerance of this contrasts with police action against public comments by non-celebrities which are only mildly offensive.
gallois wrote:
The PRS wouldn’t normally try to sell a licence for private use. What is private use was determined in law over 20 years ago, although like all laws there is ambiguity.
But basically it says that a venue has to have a music licence if it is to play music for commercial reasons. Such would be a hall which is rented out to host a wedding.
Licensing a venue for music is an entirely different thing. See this link, it’s local authority licensing and it has a similar basis in law as licensing the sale of alcohol. This is nothing to do with copyright or money going to composers/performers and the law that governs it has no interest in that.
PRS / PPL are purely commercial and their licensing paperwork is nothing more than speculative invoicing. If they feel you are doing something you shouldn’t then they can either bring a private prosecution (the CPS are unlikely to be interested) under the relevant (copyright) section of criminal law or more realistically sue you for breach of contract on the non-private use thing. Their difficulty will be in proving their case, and they will have to prove specific incidents and prove them (for a criminal prosecution) beyond reasonable doubt.
However this all costs money and is difficult to do, so what they do is write threatening letters to pretty much all businesses they can get details for and warn them of dire consequences if they don’t pay for a licence – much the same way that TV Licensing operate. Many pay up grudgingly for an easy life, many pay up and proudly display their ‘license’, and many just throw the threatening letters in the bin. In the case of the latter further action is unlikely because they aren’t geared up to prove a criminal case for playing a radio in some tiny office that almost no-one knows even exists. The model is just further threatening letters until some % of people get scared and cough up.
gallois wrote:
But that is the top end of the scale. Most are not that well off. At the other end of the scale writers of what were once hit songs which when they were written might only have netted the composer a few thousand pounds are now providing a small pension of a few pounds a year.
Surely you cannot begrudge them that. After all people are still getting pleasure from their songs many many years after they wrote them.
I don’t doubt that’s how it is, but the viability or otherwise of making money from music isn’t really my concern. My concern is that, via one route or other, people pay an agreed price for a copy of some music and then down the line some self-appointed organisation decides that its ok to try and use threatening letters to make people pay again based on some tenuous ‘commercial use’ arguments. If you don’t want your music being heard by those who’ve not directly paid, then don’t sell it to radio stations.
I cannot comment on the PPL I have never heard of them. They were not around as far as I know before I retired. The PRS has been around for at least 50 years that I remember and is a society which distributes the income due from the perfomance of musicians etc. A council should not issue a music licence to a venue unless this is accompanied by some agreement, usually a licence to perform such music whether that is a live performance or via a disc jockey. In fact most councils hold PRS licences for all their public buildings. The Performing Rights Society (PRS) is a recognised music industry body and has nothing whatsoever to do with TV Licencing of the BBC. The second collects in order to make programmes the first gets paid after their performance (in this case music) is used.
Unless the PRS has changed in the last few years it would never send someone a bill for playing his radio in his office. IMO this is either fake news or someone is using the name of PRS as a scam and I would love to see evidence of the PRS taking someone to court for this.
If a person pays an agreed price for a piece of music eg a CD that is the end of it, unless they wish to copy that CD and sell it to people (that is covered under piracy laws) or if they wish to copy it and use it in a video or tv programme (where it is covered by MCPS and nothing to do with PRS) or if you wish to play it at a public venue to some type of paying audience in which case the venue needs to pay the PRS and in the case of most venues is covered by an annual licence fee. I seem to remember a small village hall was about £15 a year. The PRS do not normally send letters demanding money to individuals unless that individual runs a venue which it is known profits from the performance (as described earlier) of music.
Radio stations might be covered by one or both of the MCPS or PRS but most will undoubtedly have some agreement for the payment of royalties. You listening to the radio in your own home, car, or office will not be expected to pay anything extra.
gallois wrote:
A council should not issue a music licence to a venue unless this is accompanied by some agreement, usually a licence to perform such music whether that is a live performance or via a disc jockey.
The part of the council that is concerned with venue licensing is different to that which may or may not choose to purchase a PRS license for the venues it owns or operates itself. The former part is not interested in questions of copyright. For all they know they may be issuing a music license to a pub so that bands can play their own material, for which no PRS license (or really permission from the copyright holder, which is who/what they represent) is required.
gallois wrote:
The Performing Rights Society (PRS) is a recognised music industry body and has nothing whatsoever to do with TV Licencing of the BBC.
I didn’t say it was anything to do with TV Licensing. I said it uses the same tactics (threatening letters.)
gallois wrote:
Unless the PRS has changed in the last few years it would never send someone a bill for playing his radio in his office.
It does. It openly argues that licenses are required wherever music is played in a workplace – it deems this a ‘public performance’. Small offices, cafes, etc receive indiscriminate mailings threatening all sorts of dire consequences if they don’t buy a licence and insisting that even playing the radio where only staff can hear it needs a license.
gallois wrote:
I would love to see evidence of the PRS taking someone to court for this.
As I said, they don’t (routinely) take people to court. They write them threatening letters in an effort to increase the proportion who just pay up for an easy life. They send the same threatening letters to every tiny business they can get details for, warning them that pretty much everyone needs a license – at least in their view.
gallois wrote:
Radio stations might be covered by one or both of the MCPS or PRS but most will undoubtedly have some agreement for the payment of royalties. You listening to the radio in your own home, car, or office will not be expected to pay anything extra.
Of course – the radio station has paid so I do not. However this is not the end of it as far as PRS are concerned. In their view, all employers require a PRS licence if their employees are able to listen to the radio at work, and this extends to trying to invoice each of the (regionalised) UK Police Forces for a licence to cover all of their police cars which have a radio to which officers might listen whilst driving. A quick Google tells you that some forces pay up and others give them two fingers, presumably inviting them to attempt to prove particular instances of individual police officers listening to the radio in their cars.
Graham wrote:
“However this is not the end of it as far as PRS are concerned. In their view, all employers require a PRS licence if their employees are able to listen to the radio at work, and this extends to trying to invoice each of the (regionalised) UK Police Forces for a licence to cover all of their police cars which have a radio to which officers might listen whilst driving. A quick Google tells you that some forces pay up and others give them two fingers, presumably inviting them to attempt to prove particular instances of individual police”
I’d love to see some facts behind these statements rather than a quick Google.
A police station regularly playing music for the office Christmas party or retirement does might be considered a venue of interest to the PRS. Police cars would not, so if the police force pay PRS for that they have a fool for a commander. Sadly you can’t legislate for stupid people or perhaps you have to take those sort of people into account when you make legislation.
A pub only playing live music where the musicians own all the rights to that music would have a good case for not paying PRS but that would be very unusual, and I would suggest rarer than hen’s teeth.
But what has all this got to do with GA. IMO you can quite happily fly your Piper or Cessna playing the best of Black Sabbath to all your passengers without any threatening letters from PRS. And if you do get one, laugh and chuck it in the bin. Or if you feel you need to vent, just write back and tell them to “sod off”.
Spent half a century dealing with PRS and other such societies and always found them helpful and pleasant. All they are interested in is making sure that the performers, composers etc get the money they are due.
Am I understanding that you personally have first hand knowledge of threats from PRS and if so could you share them in the off topic thread?
A_and_C wrote:
I would disagree with Malibuflyer, the Law on board an aircraft is that of the state of registration,
Unfortunately not – as one can easily see by many practical examples (like no alcohol being served in Iran airspace even on international flights, different drinking limits, restriction of movement off passengers in the cabin within the US airspace even on airplanes gestured in a European country, etc.).
Things are really complex if the airplane is not over international territory. In this case, however, it is quite simple: The death has happened over UK territory on a flight with a destination in UK. So UK law applies.
And btw.: it is quite easy to judge that also the UK officials share this opinion. If they really thought German laws would apply all of the passengers (and for sure the corps) would still be in the airplane today as it would have been upon the German police to clear the people from leaving the plane after they have concluded the required steps to exclude a criminal offense.
Malibuflyer wrote:
restriction of movement off passengers in the cabin within the US airspace even on airplanes gestured in a European country
I don’t understand, can you please elaborate?
