[cma-l] PRS fees

[Two Lochs Radio]

Exactly so, Tony.

A little story to illustrate...

The law does give anyone, or any representative body, the right to request 
acceptable terms from the copyright bodies. If the copyright body refuses, 
then the user can determine a reasonable figure for themselves, pending a 
legal or agreed settlement. The arbiter if it comes to a legal battle is the 
Copyright Tribunal.

A few years back, we felt that PPL's charges with respect to minimum fees, 
especially for streaming, for us as a small non-profit commercial licence 
holder, and we asked them to offer us a more reasonable agreement.

They delayed and delayed and argued details and principles with us over a 
very long period. In the end we said we wanted to exercise our legal right 
to set for ourselves what we thought was a fair rate (a 'statutory 
licence'), pending taking a case to the Copyright Tribunal.

PPL pointed out, correctly, that they could break us with the legal fees 
they could rack up and force us also to incur, and we might want to 
reconsider (they didn't use those exact words!). While we knew they were 
quite right in that, we said that nonetheless it looked as if that was the 
only option they had left us if we wanted to be treated fairly under the 
law. We also pointed out that it would not attract good publicity to PPL 
(David vs Goliath etc) - and they knew we would have done our best to make 
the most of that aspect.

In the end just as we had got to the point where we would have had to put up 
or shut up, PPL came up with a combination of alternative licences that, 
while not conceding any principles, ended up with us paying what we regarded 
as a more equitable amount. So we weren't forced to make a decision on going 
to tribunal, and elected not to pursue the matte rof principle, which would 
have risked the whole station,.

It's another facet of the discussion in another thread of how things tend to 
be stacked in favour of the large well-healed and well-connected incumbents. 
There is no 'small claims court' equivalent for determination of copyright 
disputes.

However, the tribunal is slightly different from the courts in that it can 
choose how to apportion liability for costs on principles somewhat 
independent of the ruling it makes in the actual matter of a case. When all 
this was happening with us, a case I looked at the tribunal's summing up on 
the award of costs was considerably longer than the main judgement, but in 
essence said that PPL had deliberately racked up unreasonable costs for both 
sides and wasted a lot of time and effort on the apparent assumption that as 
it was going to win, the loser would be heavily hit by costs. The Tribunal 
decided therefore not to award all the costs against the 'loser'.

I am not a lawyer and all the above is only my lay take on what happened!

The main point is that there is nothing legal to stop the CMA or other 
representative group from seeking a better settlement with the copyright 
bodies, but the financial stakes are high, and provide what I would see as a 
barrier to smaller bodies and the not-for-profit sector achieving fair 
treatment under the law.

Alex

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Bailey" <studio at ravensoundradio.co.uk>
To: "Office - ccr-fm" <office at ccr-fm.co.uk>
Cc: "'CMA-L'" <cma-l at commedia.org.uk>
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2011 11:36 AM
Subject: Re: [cma-l] PRS fees


> Nick,
>
> It's civil law so there's nothing wrong with your original "club
> together" proposal, I believe that is what the ILRs did do.  You might
> find it cheaper not to bother, as the costs of actioning it might exceed
> the benefit, as Gerald Nabarro used to say "you can get justice if you
> can afford to pay for it"
>
> Regards, Tony
>