[cma-l] Community Radio Seminar

[CMA-L]

>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Ian Hickling <transplanfm at hotmail.com>
>
> Good thinking Alex
> I could contest every one of your "responses" but I'm sure everyone else
> would be bored to tears.
> The only one I would pick up on is "*Storing and copying musical works is
> an activity pursuant to the process of using them for gain"*
> I suggest that's equivalent to saying that having a car is the same as
> driving it.
> Clearly a little insecure as a piece of logic.
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> *Ian Hickling
> **Partner
> *
> ------------------------------
> From: tlr at gairloch.co.uk
> To: ian at transplan.uk.com; phil at bcfm.org.uk; cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk
> Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 20:19:35 +0000
> Subject: Re: [cma-l] Free Community Radio Seminar
>
> 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!)*
>
>  ------------------------------------
>
> *Ian Hickling
> **Partner
>
> *
>
>
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