[cma-l] Free Community Radio Seminar

[Two Lochs Radio]

Playing Devil's Advocate for interest Ian, I could anticipate some of the answers from PRS to your questions:
 
1 - What is your legal basis for demanding payments?
The Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988, Sec 116-123, under which PRS has the status of a statutorily recognized licensing body operating am approved licensing scheme on behalf of the copyright holders.

2 - In the event of failure or refusal, what action do you take and how successful have you been?
We actively pursue royalties owing to us using all the appropriate legal remedies

3 - How do you justify asking for Royalties for storing and copying musical works - as opposed to the process of using them for gain?
Storing and copying musical works is an activity pursuant to the process of using them for gain.

4 - How do you justify asking for Royalties which are not proportioned to the rate of use of musical works?
Administrative overheads and diseconomies of scale mean that it would be unfair on our larger users if we charged strictly in direct proportion.

5 - How do you spend every £1000 for instance that you draw in Royalties?
See our annual accounts. We return almost 90% of our royalty income to our members who create the music

6 - How do you justify the rates charged to Community Radio compared with those paid by commercial broadcasters?
We charge both sectors virtually identical rates

7 - How do you justify the rates charged to Restricted Service Licence operators compared with those paid by full-time Licensees?
Administrative overheads and diseconomies of scale, yada

8 - How do you justify the rates charged to small stations which broadcast a large proportion of unsigned as opposed to mainstream music?
Stations whose total use of our members' music is less than 15% of broadcasting time are charged a royalty rate of just 1%. We have to treat stations on a statistical basis along with the bulk of the radio industry which derives enormous value from exploitation of our members' repertoire. The overhead costs for both parties in recording, analysing and reconciling individual track data would almost certainly outweigh any potential royalty reductions.

I'm sure there are more that we could add.
Yes:
Are you willing to operate a group scheme for the not-for-profit sector which would aggregate their usage, and apportion royalties on a strictly proportional basis, thus avoiding most of the problems of diseconomies of scale.

Alex 
(Sorry, I've forgotten the emoticon for tongue-in-cheek!)


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  Ian Hickling
  Partner


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