[cma-l] PRS fees

[Ian Hickling]

Shouldn't we step back for a moment and look at the situation objectively?
If you buy a Ford, you don't pay Ford every time you drive it.
If you visit a museum, you don't pay the van Dyck Foundation every time you look at one of his paintings.
When you read a Jeffrey Archer novel you don't have to pay him for the privilege each time.
I don't get a payment for the amount of use one of my transmitters has when it's hired out.
So why should Elton John for instance get paid every time you play one of his tracks?
And the middle-men rake off a profit for collecting it?
No - sorry - the whole thing stinks.
I'm all for musicians and artists to get a fair payment for what they do - but if they're not there and they're doing nothing to earn - why do they think we should pay them?
PRS for Music and PPL are not transparent and I really don't believe they are in it for anything more than their own profit.
Added to that, the way they randomly and unilaterally charge has no logic and seriously penalises the small user.
If we are to pay, let it be a Statutory Licence Fee to Ofcom and let it be directly proportional to the number of listener music hours that each of us provides.
 
------------------------------------
Ian Hickling
Partner
transplan UK

 


> Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:33:54 +0100
> From: ed at resonancefm.com
> To: cma-l at commedia.org.uk
> Subject: [cma-l] PRS fees
> 
> Dear all,
> The PRS suggests community stations "choose up to three commercial
> radio stations that your playlist is similar to" with a view to them
> allocating money to composers featured on said stations. I wonder
> where this idea orginated. Might it not be apposite that the fees
> community stations pay to the PRS are allocated to the PRS for Music
> Foundation, which as a charity and an innovative supporter of new
> music shares many of the aims and aspirations of community media
> platforms.
> None of the commercial stations play anything like the music that
> Resonance plays. Nor do we have "playlists". We favour music not
> represented by any other stations in the UK. It is important to us
> that PRS fees are going to the correct kind of songwriters and
> composers. I see no relevance or point in sharing them among the kind
> of nostalgic MOR artistes and the ragbag purveyors of reactionary
> claptrap generally favoured by UK commercial stations.
> I suspect this will elicit a groan among the people at PRS, who like
> everyone else surely want an easy life, but wonder what others in CMA
> think.
> Yours
> Ed
> -- 
> Nominee, Sony Radio Academy Awards 2010 "Station Programmer of the Year"
> Runner-up, PRSF New Music Award 2008
> As featured in the Independent on Sunday's Happy List
> Ed Baxter
> programming director
> Resonance104.4fm - winner of the Radio Academy’s Nations and Regions
> Award for London 2009 and 2010
> 144 Borough High Street
> London SE1 1LB
> 020 7407 1210
> 
> Resonance104.4fm is not-for-profit (UK registered charity no. 290236)
> and is funded entirely by grants and voluntary donations. The Guardian
> calls it “the best radio station in London”; the Village Voice, “the
> best radio station in the world”. You can support the station’s
> continued growth with a secure donation via www.resonancefm.com
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