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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Alex, Ian n’ all<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Firstly my apologies for getting PPL and
PRS muddled up ………… and secondly, I think Alex has
knocked me into the silver medal position regarding long e-mails. By the time I’d
got to the end of it I’d grown a beard ! LOL
good stuff though.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>In my opinion it doesn’t matter
whether it’s writers, publishers, performers etc etc it’s
all a load of cobblers and a money making racket jobs for the boys.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>If Fred Bloggs wants to release a cd but
use 10 songs that were written by 5 x Herbert Thistlethwaite + 5 x Nora Batty
then it is up to Fred to pay Herbert and Nora ………………
it ain’t my responsibility or problem.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Furthermore if Henry Clackett buys a Ford
Mondeo and opens up a Taxi business he’s making money out of using that
car that he has purchased. Does he give Ford another 5p everytime he drives it
???<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>So far as performers rights and ppl etc
are concerned if it is copied or performed for profit then there should be
a charge or even a FINE !<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Sell yer product, take money and get on
with the next project. That’s it …………. Don’t
create a bottomless pit, which is what we’ve got at the moment.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I’m struggling to try to explain
what my feelings are ….. I know it’s a bit rough at the edges and
possibly needs thinking through, you’ll have to forgive me ……..
but, nevertheless, I think people catch my drift??<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>It’s a con-trick<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Nick<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span lang=EN-US
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font
size=2 face=Tahoma><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
cma-l-bounces@mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces@mailman.commedia.org.uk] <b><span style='font-weight:
bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>Two Lochs Radio<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> 25 March 2011 10:58<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> ian@transplan.uk.com; Tom
Buckham; phil@bcfm.org.uk; cma-l<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Re: [cma-l] Free
Community Radio Seminar</span></font><span lang=EN-US><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>Spot on Ian! </span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>What is really galling is that PPL justify their
substantial minimum raes (as opposed to proportional to use) by saying that it
is necessary to cover administration costs with the smallest stations. In other
words they are saying that most of the royalties paid by the smallest stations
do not in fact go to the artists and record companies, but in fact are spent on
PPL admin overheads! Although they are a 'not for profit' company like all of
us, they do still maintain a large staff with well paid senior management (the
top earner gets over £0.5 million annually), legal teams etc, who are paid
for before remaining monies are distributed to rights holders. Overall PPL (for
which I have figures) spends 15% of its gross income on overheads, but I would
guess that in the not-for-profit sector this proportion is nearer 80%. </span></font><font
size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>Also last year PPL reported a £1m increase in revenue from
radio broadcasters, despite by their figures, an 8% fall in commercial radio
revenues. Also, for some reason they exclude the costs of their defined
benefit pension scheme when calculating overheads.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>PRS recorded around £15m increase in income over the same
period of industry downturn, however it's overhead costs are lower, at around
10%, and it boasts of being "one of the world’s most efficient
combined rights collecting operations". <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>To take some round figures to put this into perspective, a
typical broadcasting licensee has a minimum charge of around £600 and there are
around 200 very small licensees who are likely to have genuine proprtional use
more like an average of, say, £100. Those figures would mean PPL is
costing the sector £100k per year in admin overheads that simply go to pay for
staff to collect the money, while only £20k is passed on to rights holders. </span></font><font
size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>Not a very efficient system, to say the least, and a
substantial drain on the community sector, and that's just for one collecting
body. Those are conservative estimate figures - the total efficiency waste for
the whole non-profit sector across all three royalty collectors, including web
stream royalties, could easily mount up to as much as the entire annual
Community Radio Fund!</span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>The royalty bodies are really able to maintain their
present position only because they have the financial backing to stand the
legal costs that would be involved in arguing the case before a Copyright
Tribunal (which is the legal arbiter on what the royalty collectors can
do), so the small stations (and even not-so-small) are not in a
financial position to challenge them.</span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>It is legally open to the user of any copyright works to
declare that they are not being offered a realistic licence by the collecting
body, and to deem their own reasonable rate of payment pending an application
to the Copyright Tribunal (that's simplified, but is the basic provision in
law). But of course there are high stakes in that for an individual station,
and most of us would be financially broken by a week's legal costs if awarded
against us. </span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>Three years ago, after a year of negotiation was
getting nowhere fast, we told one copyright body we were going to
go down that route, but before we got to formal legal procedings they came
up with a compromise offer that suited us reasonably well at the time. I
suspect that despite the potential threat of legal costs, they equally knew
that the case could have brought them adverse publicity and set a precedent for
other stations.</span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>PPL is well known for doing nothing to minimize the
legal costs that are racked up. So much so that in one case in which their case
was accepted, the Tribunal ordered them to pay the 'losing' parties' costs
anyway because the Tribunal recognized that PPL had unreasonably racked up the
legal costs by various tactics.</span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>If the whole sector stood together with joint financing of
an action, or the CMA performed that function with the formal backing of the
sector, a case could be taken before the Tribunal and I think it would stand a
high chance of winning, but of course the stakes are still high.</span></font><font
size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>I would prefer to see CMA do for non-profit stations what
the RadioCentre does for the (notionally)profit-making stations' MCPS
payemnts. The RadioCentre pays MCPS a total figure for all
its members, based on the total music usage across the board, and then
passes on the costs to its members in strict proportion to their TSAs (it could
possibly be done more fairly in proportion to income, but that would add a
large admin overhead in cllating the figures). Doing this means that a very
small community-based stations pay typically only £50-150 a year, while the big
commercial stations pay a fair share.</span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>This would destroy the royalty collectors' defence of
their high minimum costs as they would now have the overhead of dealing with
only one body for the majority of the sector. This would cost more than
administering one station, since there would need to be some auditing checks
etc, but the costs would be a tiny fraction of the costs they claim in
administering several hundred stations individually, and the individual stations
should on average see a several-fold reduction in their fees.</span></font><font
size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>I think CMA should offer to take on this role, or if it is
unwilling, they not-for-profit sector could set up its own aggregating body to
handle this (and if successful, it could potentially develop to other things in
future - such as group insurance schemes, or even advertising sales). CMA
already has to do membership admin and could handle the PPL/PRS payments in the
same as RadioCentre does with MCPS - simply adding the proportional charges to
the annual renewal invoices, with automatically calculated amounts requiring
little admin overhead. </span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>This should also benefit CMA and sector cohesion
as stations would see a direct financial and admin benefit from CMA
membership in addition to all the more nebulous lobbying and education
work. In the case of RadiCentre, membership for smaller commercial
stations is cost-negative because of the savings they make in MCPS fees by
paying a proper proportional amount instead of an individual minimum fee-based
amount.</span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>That's my pennyworth, anyway (or potentially £1m pound's
worth if our sector got its act together!)</span></font><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Calibri'>Alex</span></font><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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