[cma-l] PPL / PRS for Music mini consultation

[Alex Gray, Two Lochs Radio]

Nick

 

I can see where you’re coming from, but sadly the ‘simple route’ is simply
not currently available, and PPL has the law on its side. The bottom line is
that you are providing a service that is partly facilitated by the use of
PPL’s members’ products, and PPL doesn’t see why it should let you use those
products for free in order to ‘merely provide a service’. Put bluntly, PPL
doesn’t owe your station a living. Does the electricity company give you
free electricity just because you are non-profit, or the phone company, or

of course not, which is why it costs £30-50k to run the smallest of
full-time stations.

 

Of course the law could be changed to give greater recognition of the value
to society of community radio, and specify that as part of the deal giving
them statutory collection rights, the copyright societies should be obliged
to allow free use by non-profit radio. But until that golden day, PPL is
within its rights, and all you can argue about is the method and amounts of
the calculations.

 

No amount of raging about the injustice of it all for non-profits will
change that. 

 

In fact, in the case of community licensees it’s precisely the ‘non-profit’
aspect that they use to justify the minimum payment from stations that are
not allowed to sell advertising, are highly grant/donation-funded, or are
highly restricted in what they can sell. PPL maintains that measuring
broadcast revenue doesn’t give what it regards as a fair payment for the way
its members recordings make it possible for you to provide an attractive
service at all.

 

However, PPL is greedy and vulnerable to challenge in the scale and nature
of its charges, as those are not set by law except to the extent that
rulings are obtained from the Copyright Tribunal, and the Tribunal has never
approved minimum charges. In fact in the past it has indicated disapproval
of them as they amount to charging ‘premiums’. The minimum fee is also
challengeable on the basis that it is inequitable, ie unfair to small
stations as they are made to pay a proportionately higher royalty rate than
larger ones.

 

I’m ducking down behind the desk now!

 

Alex

 

From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of Canalside's The
Thread
Sent: 11 February 2016 16:36
To: 'The Community Media Association Discussion List'
<cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [cma-l] PPL / PRS for Music mini consultation

 

Hmm ?

 

Alex et al

 

I am fully aware of what they charge and why they charge it. However, that’s
not the point. I suppose if we were being honest with ourselves (and them)
then everything is to do with Broadcasting     why ?  because we are
Community RADIO  
..

 

The key is we are using Broadcasting as a means to an end, that end is NOT
MAKING PROFIT. We are not making commercial profit as such off the back of
Tina Turner and Elton John, we are merely providing a service. No one, not
the PRS/PPL/Ed Vaizey/CMA/Ofcom/Uncle Tom Cobbley/Me/Thee/ All and sundry
can argue against this 
. And why ?   because when the Bill was passed it
was made very clear why Community Radio existed, why it was here and what
its purpose is. I didn’t make the rules, they did. We now have as I have
pointed out that those in authority and those with the clout are technically
arguing and contradicting against their own rules.



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