[cma-l] Royalty payments

[Karl Hartland]

I'm just going to chuck about some random thoughts on this....

I understand the difficulties and burdens on reporting, especially down 
to the level of ISRC.

However, monitoring and reporting will only increase for Community Media 
projects in general as tendering, commissioning and procurement become 
the norm, forced upon us by Compacts and what I like to call the 'silent 
VCS/LSC two prong revolution'. If you know not of what I speak then you 
will do soon if you deliver Local Authority objectives or pull down 
Learning and Skills Council monies from any angle....those who don't are 
already lagging behind, I fear and will have to catch up very quickly 
over the next couple of years..

Back to music - as Trevor says, quite rightly, smaller broadcasters and 
CM in general are already making their power known to musicians and 
'labels' alike.

So, as this growth continues, is there wisdom in allowing valuable data 
to evaporate away? Wouldn't it be great to be able to do some kind of 
meta-study that proves the Arctic Monkeys were pulled down from MySpace 
into CR station new music programmes and podcasts, who then reached such 
a mass that R1 couldn't ignore it?

Having done a fair bit of reporting for the royalty guys now, I've 
actually taken unexpected pleasure in letting them know who it is we 
have played. Whether or not those registered musicians will ever see a 
penny is an elephant that PPL/PRS etc must acknowledge, address and make 
transparent to all but I must admit that I spent no time whatsoever 
getting ISRC numbers if they were not available from our programme's 
music reporting sheets, which they aren't more often than not.

The idea of saying 'we are like 6 Music' turned my stomach - not that 6 
isn't OK, it just seems very weak to me to make that comparison and you 
know that someone whose agent can bend ears at PPL has been paid instead 
of the local guy you actually played who has a full-time job and cannot 
chase such stuff.

However, I am torn on the issue of payment. Why should charities be 
exempt but CR charities (like us) and those who aren't but are 
constituted as NFP have to pay?

That has been nagging me this week.....

K

Karl Hartland
209radio Station Manager

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http://209radio.co.uk everywhere else!

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Bill Best wrote:
 > Hi Trevor
 >
 > Thank you for this and the pledges of support to the CMA.
 >
 > As mentioned last Friday the CMA has written to Alison Seabeck MP
 > thanking her for her contribution to the PRS debate last Wednesday and
 > welcoming the code of conduct that has been drawn up by PRS in how
 > they intend to communicate with small businesses and charities.
 >
 > We have also copied the letter to David Lammy, Minister for Higher
 > Education & Intellectual Property and requested a meeting with both
 > MPs to discuss with them further how this matter affects the community
 > broadcasting sector as a whole.
 >
 > As a result of dialogue with the CMA, PPL no longer requires community
 > radio stations to deliver a detailed ISRC report but stations may now
 > describe their output in terms of other more well-known platforms,
 > e.g. "We're 50:50 Radio1 and Radio4" or something like that.
 >
 > Music licensing for community broadcasters, as well as digital
 > switchover and funding issues, is one of the key priorities of the
 > CMA.  Furthermore we will be taking feedback from you to the Digital
 > Mentors fund meeting at DCLG tomorrow - please see my next email.
 >
 > Best regards
 >
 > Bill