Music Licence PPL or PRS or Both

[icepop55]

I am in the Hairdressing business. I have always paid towards a 'Music Licence'. In this instants a PRS Fee. Up to now the PPL has written to me saying I also need its licence.

As the rules apply if I am a PRS feeing body I dont need the PPL licence. But, the PPL say I need both Licences!!! Stricky speaking, the PRS is for live music and PPL radio stuff.

I wish to know where I stand on this issue?

As a small business, althougth I RESENT paying one but to pay for two licences I find this differcult credence uncredible and hard to take.

Can someone help me with this matter.

[MARTIN3030]

Yes you do actually need both.

[MARTIN3030]

sent you a pm-since the info I think will help is copyright and so cant post ATM.

[JUSTBUBS]

Hi - I have just had the same experience. I received a phone call from a 'Witheld' telephone number - which automatically makes one think this is a [problem]. I pay the annual PRS licence and now have just got 1 invoice for a current licence and a 50% surcharge for not having notified the PPL that I am playing music in a workshop. I run a legitimate business in manufacturing/construction. Times are tough for our industry at the moment and I find it rather difficult to take that I am receiving a fine for something I have never heard of. If I have to pay for the licence, thats ok, but a fine ? It would be most helpful if you could DM the information you you discussed above here.

[icepop55]

Sending you a PM.

[stupidboy]

My wife is in the same situation, and ppl have just sent an invoice for £400 for her small gift shop.

 

She has paid the prs licence for two years, and now ppl come along and charge her her last year, next year and a fine for not having a licence that she knew nothing about until they rang her.

 

I'm inclined to say "see you in court" and see what they have to sue for - breach of contract? What contract?

 

Any ideas welcomed as we don't have £400 and to be honest, even if we did, why should we pay it?

 

Sb

[MARTIN3030]

I think you answered your own question.

[icepop55]

Hi Stupidboy

i will PM you....

[peter999]

i work for a company and we have paid the prs licence for the last 6 years. we had no knowledge of needing a ppl licence until an employee rang from ppl rang them. we gave them the details for our operations and 2 days letter they presented us with an invoice for £33,000 for the last 6 years and a 50% surcharge!!!

From the posts it seems that we do need both licences, but why just a stupid system of needing to pay to 2 seperate companies

Question 1) can they go back 6 years 2) do we have to pay the surcharge.

[MARTIN3030]

Who has sent the demand can you give us the postcode ?

[philharg]

Hi all including Martin, fortunately this isn't about my Vodafone cause for a change.

 

My parents business have been put in a similar position in the last few weeks and have asked me to investigate.

 

They have always had PRS subscription and paid.

 

They have now received a demand of payment from the PPL for the next two years usage and for last year with their additional 50% surchage levied on top. Do they really need it and are they bound to pay for last year having never been 'signed up'.

 

Please can I receive all advice and if you can't post in the thread don't hesitate to PM me.

 

Kind regards

 

philharg

[MARTIN3030]

Hi first of all.I think we need to clear up one thing.

PRS and PPL are not like HMRC -they are not a Government body at all.

They are an organisation who represents artists and musicians.

It is for PPL to show and prove that there are fees payable from the last year.

It is unreasonable to be expecting any payment upfront for the next 2 years.

The surcharge unless they can substantiate otherwise,looks to be a penalty charge which is unenforcable under common law.

[theghost]

PPL and PRS represent different parts of the music industry - one is for the writers and one is for the actual record companies I believe.

 

They collect music on behalf of the musicians.

 

If you play music in a comemrcial place then you are using copyrighted works. Technically they can sue you for breaching copyright. To avoid doing that they may just ask you to 'back pay' for previous use.

 

Obviously you cna decide whether to pay up or let them take you to court.

 

Going forward, the poitn of the licence fee is so that you can play copyrighted music without breaching copyright alw.s

 

If you want to 'get out' of paying the fees in the future then either dont play music or play really old music that has no copyright on it anymore. (or you can get copyright eprmission directly from smaller artist sthat may not be covred by PPL/PRS).

[theghost]

 

I'm inclined to say "see you in court" and see what they have to sue for - breach of contract? What contract?

 

 

Copyright law gives people protection for their work. If you use someones work without their permission they cansue you for damages.

 

There doesnt need to be a contract.

 

BTW I am not trying to scare you - I have no idea whther they will actually bother to sue you.

[smileeej]

HI all

 

I have just been phoned by PPL.

I knew nothing of this licenece requirement just like other people on this forum

I currently pay for a PRS licence now that they reduced their minimum fee.

Before they reduced the fee, which was a ridiculous amount for a small business who has no customers visiting, I refused to pay for me and my wife to listen to the radio especially when somene doing the same work from home does not need to pay. The calculatuion system was also ridiculously complicated.

 

It seems that PPL have now jumped on the bandwaggon of targeting small businesses.

They have quoted me £71 plus a penalty totalling £130. this is a lot of money for a small business especially when we thought we had sorted this by paying around £50 to PRS.

 

If PPL force me to pay I will take out the radio as before and then PPL and PRS will get nothing.

 

I also question how much of this money, if I pay any of course, actually goes to the artists we listen to.

 

Why don't they get together and make a simple low fee for small businesses (les than 5 people say) who have no customer face and inform all businesses of the need, if there really is one. This would probably result in increasing the total revenue considerably as there would not be the people who are unaware of the need for the licence and other people would bring the radios back into the work place because they could afford it!!

 

Cheers

 

Jerry

[wstewpot]

Hi Jerry, I work for a company that seems to have been built off the back of people like yourself who have been hounded for PRS or PPL fees.

 

I have had to try and work out how these license fees work which is why I have dragged up this old thread. To put it mildly the PRS / PPL have created so much confusion that no one has any idea what license fees they need to pay any more. If you need help from me to try and clarify this for you, I'll try to help.

 

The general rule (that I can make out) is if you are BROADCASTING music (i.e. more than one person is listening to the music you are playing) then you have to pay both PRS and PPL.

Edited December 4, 2012 by honeybee13
Commercial references.

[Conniff]

Welcome to the site wstewpot.

 

So, can we spread that wisdom around.

 

I have music on my site - http://uknationalforums.com/forumdisplay.php?11-British-Pop-Chart-Top-10s-1952-2000 which I had intended to stream from my own equipment. After reading the respective websites, I emailed them for clarification and what fees I would be liable for. What I got back bears no resemblance to their websites at all, they seem to have deliberately not spelt it all out.

 

Not only were the fees enormous but I would be limited to the number of recordings offered and the amount of time, (30 seconds) that track could play for.

 

I would love some idea what my fees would likely be if I decided to stream the tracks myself ?

[wstewpot]

Hi Conniff,

 

I personally don't think they spell it out because they just make it up a bit as they go along. The internet is also a too new for them and streaming is a model they haven't really created any sort of pricing structure for.

 

They seem to charge you WAY less if a stream is all it is. A stream where the user does not have any say in what plays next, they cant pause, skip or repeat. My company have got around the massive fees by distributing only unlicensed music via the internet - e.g. we buy an album or a load of songs directly from the artist rather than from the record label.

 

Your music is licensed and someone collects royalties for it. Can you package all your music up into one continuous feed instead? You look like you are just linking to youtube which is ideal because you don't have to deal with any licensing stuff, however links will go bad after a while.

 

Big subscription sites like Pandora or Spotify will just pay that massive fee for the usability of being able to pause, skip etc. Smaller sites like 8 tracks.com limit you to only pressing skip a certain number of times because they haven't got the capital for one of these huge licenses.

 

What I'm pretty much saying is that there is no legal way to flexibly stream licensed music without paying the ridiculous fee.

[Conniff]

Thanks for that Stewpot. My idea of laying them all out as I have was so people could click on the years they liked or remembered so can't really make it one long stream as it will totally alter the intention.

 

I know the links can go bad so will have to keep my eye on them and keep them updated.

 

When asked if everything was in order and was I ready to go ahead, I emailed back saying 'no thank you, it is all a big conn and will just link to YouTube'. They never even had the courtesy to reply.

[wstewpot]

FYI the PPL and PRS are separate companies but exchange information. If you have been contacted by one the other is very likely to follow.

[CHRIS44G]

Treat them like DCA`s. Don`t phone them, don`t speak to them, don`t answer their letters and definately don`t pay them!

[PRS101]

Hey guys, just stumbled across this thread & through fear of backlash wanted to bring it back to life and to say there are alternatives to the PRS & PPL fees. Some sites offer businesses real music that is free from PRS & PPL control, meaning your shop or salon or office etc can still have music playing but without the hefty fees.

 

You only have to have a license from the PRS & PPL if you play music/recordings that's copyright is under their administration. SO by providing a internet radio service for business that only plays music that the service controls (& is not under PRS & PPL control) the businesses no longer have to have their licenses.

 

Check it out if it's of interest to anyone here - I'm hopefully if nothing else it will give business owner an option!

Best

Edited September 15, 2013 by honeybee13

[Conniff]

Spam unapproved.

 

Yes, but can we play all the chart hits going back as far as the sixties, that it the BIG question ??

Edited September 14, 2013 by Conniff

[Conniff]

Ok, I have just noticed the FAQs

 

Can I play my music from my favourite albums/bands etc?

 

No. The point of the service from The Business Radio is to supply you with a radio service that plays music that is not controlled by the PRS & PPL. The majority of popular and commercial music is controlled by PRS & PPL. Unfortunately if you wish to continue hearing your favourite bands music in your business you will need to have a PRS & PPL license. However all the music we provide in The Business Radio is a wide spread of quality songs, across all popular genres, from internationally recognised artists & bands.

 

Which makes this useless spam, we don't want music that no one has heard before from people no one has heard of, so unapproved - sorry.

[PRS101]

Do apologise Conniff - Just I saw that the thread was started by a business owner who was having issues with the PRS & PPL - and I assumed that by highlighting the fact that there is an alternative may be of use to forum members. Granted you won't be able to hear Radio 1 anymore - but I know a lot of businesses have music purely as a tool not as a focal point. I suppose the other issue to clarify is with businesses playing for example the radio, do they recognise every artist that is played & every song they hear - I find that highly unlikely so to say "we don't want music that no one has heard before from people no one has heard of" is very subjective and I'd suggest missing the point that most businesses struggle with the cost.

 

Anyway I of course bow to your better judgement & determination to continue to play your favourtie music in your business. I just hope that some people may find it beneficial to know there's cost saving alternatives available.