PRS and pub sessions in Scotland

Hi Everyone,

I’ve got a problem I want to pose for some advice. The pub owner in a session I go to has just been approached by the PRS, who are wanting a grand for the weekly session thats held there. This is just a regular Scottish Irish musical session - mostly trad. Irish and Scottish tunes, but with the occasional more modern tune, e.g. some people might play Ed Reavy tunes.

Whats the deal here?

Any help advice greatly appreciated, cheers!

Mairead

What’s the PRS?

Oh, sorry.

Its the Performing Right Society!

For a session?!?!
Tell them to GTF…



…don’t ask…..

Is the landlord SURE it’s the PRS? ’Cos this sounds dodgy to me …

Sounds like somebody’s on the take here ! Have you enquired from other session pubs, in your locality, if they were approached by the “PRS” ?

make an anonymous phone call to the polis.

I don’t think its a wind up. That was a ball park figure for a license which would include a session a week, I suspect with the presumption of a piece of copyrighted music being played at each session.

This is can happen in the USA… It might be similar there…. the publican may want to post a sign that says trad. only only… becuase its the copyrighted stuff they are after.

Hey, read this, guys!! I never knew!!

http://www.prs.co.uk/DocsRepository/1104/Pubs%20and%20Bars.pdf

LOL, I love the bit that says: “If you perform music in your pub or bar, it is classed as a public performance.”

Precisely the sort of thinking (and language) that causes us trad musicians serious heartburn, because they’ve purposefully blurred the line between performing a concert vs. playing in an informal neighborly session. So they can take the publican’s money.

It’s a shame. Right in line with today’s trends. What with cell phone videos and YouTube, everything we do can now be turned into a “public performance.” And life becomes a commercial commodity.

here’s their website:

http://www.prs.co.uk/
I haven’t read the “small print” but it looks like it is copyrighted stuff they’re after. Yes it is a shame. But what will it mean for the viability of your session, Mair….erm, mind read?

It says that if the owner doesn’t purchase the license, the only thing that can happen is “the copyright owner taking legal action against you for copyright infringement and you may become liable to pay damages and costs”. That means that Ed Reavy himself would have to sue every pub that allowed his tunes in a session. That will never happen. Any owner who caves in to that kind of ridiculous scare tactic isn’t too bright. I’d say it’s not much to worry about.

This is extortion and getting rediculous, do those who own the copyright on music receive any royalties from this organisation? How do they determine who receives more or less? At a very basic level IF the session was a professional one where payment is made then yes, paying for a royalty licence would not be a bad idea, but to discourage people who love music thats something else.

Whats next noise control, dog licencing, smoking and child protection laws?

I don’t think it’s a scare tactic, although it would be better if it was.

I’ve worked with copyright and the purpose of it is to make sure the publisher/performer is paid his dues. If you are playing tunes which have no publisher/performer who owns the rights to the song/tune then there is no-one to reimburse. Are they going to want a list of tunes/songs played along with publisher/performer details? If so you could be in for a massive hassle. Perhaps best to make sure they know you are only playing traditional stuff. However, from my understanding of the PRS, if the landlord is having other types of music played on other nights then he would need a licence anyway.

From my experience it’s worth starting talks with the licensing body (PRS in this case) before buying a licence as chances are they have no idea about what a session is or the type of music that is played there or the benefits of playing folk music (maintaining a tradition for one). They may be willing to draw up a different kind of licence purely for trad music or to let it pass completely. I know the CLA (Copyright Licensing Agency) has different types of licences for Universities, schools and different industries.

Is there a Union who may be able to help with this and pay legal fees if necesary? As trad musicians we shouldn’t just take it laying down or all sessions will be affected by it.

KML was right. Tell them to p*ss off, and maybe give one of them a kicking at the same time.

There used to be a sponsored session at a council-owned venue in Aberdeen. That is, a few musicians were paid to turn up regularly and anyone else could come and join in.

At the end, they would ask musicians to write down a list of the tunes we had played, presumably for the PRS. It was mainly a staged music venue. Some pretty fanciful names got written down.

Whatever you do, be careful about playing “Happy Birthday” for that pretty young thing celebrating her 18th at the bar. I’ve been told the people who own the copyright in that tune make every effort to enforce it!

This sort of thing is happening in the US too. The local ASCAP or BMI reps go around to establishments (bars, pubs, restaurants) that feature live music and ask for payments. A pal of mine who plays pop dance music lost a few gigs because bar owners cut live music rather than pay up.

That’s the problem we could be looking at snakefingers. Some small pubs who can’t afford a licence and only have a session as music may not be able to afford to pay for a licence and the session may be lost. Does anyone know what the Musicians Union makes of it? I would guess they would support the payment of raoyalties to musicians, but they also talk about “Keep Music Live” and trad music must come under their banner.

The only point in enforcing this would be if a composer got some money, but that’s not very likely if the charge is levied just on the presumption that a copyrighted tune would be paid. A newcomer could play a tune unknown to the regulars, and might not even know who composed it. or what it was called. There’s lots of tunes where the authorship is disputed. The composer might not mind his/her work being played. There might be tunes composed by people who are at the session - do they get something out of it? Sounds like just another form of tax to me. I wonder if anyone reading this thread has actually been a recipient of royalties earned in this way?

Just make up a list of silly names for the tunes, give them to the (so-called) PRS representative and ask them to prove they are not traditional.
Some suggestions for tune titles:

The jobsworth
The fiddle players march to the police sation
The punch in the face
Faddy Pahey’s
Red Evie’s
etc. ad infinitum

Yes Richard, if you are playing tunes for which there is no rightsholder then no fees are payable and therefore a licence is unnecessary. I haven’t looked into the role of the PRS yet but I am 99% certain they can only charge fees for copyright material and not for any other. It would also be worth knowing if they are a profit making organisation or if all the income from the licences goes to the rightsholders. Are they a government funded body or self funding? It’s all worth looking up.

On the other handm change your name to Anon Trad. and you’ll make millions!

Well I just did a quick search and came up with the following quotation: "most artists in the Western world do not profit from the existence of a copyright system; only a tiny minority get a substantial income from this rights system. (For example, a survey conducted in 2000 into the amount of income in royalties received by the 30,000 members of the UK Performing Rights Society is revealing: 200 members received more than GB £100,000, 700 members received more than GB£25,000, 1,500 received more than GB£10,000, 2,300 received more than GB£5,000 and a total of 16,000 members received under £100. It’s quoted here https://www.kent.ac.uk/law/copysouth/Documents/part-3.rtf

So then I looked up the PRS and they have a search engine - I didn’t expect it to find anything relevant, but it does throw up for example, Dusty Windowsill and Maudabawn Chapel. Here’s the link: http://iswcnet.cisac.org/ISWCNET-MWI/MWI/search.do
Ed Reavy’s creator id is 00421641787 in case you wanted to know that.

I just did a quick search on The Kesh which seems to have a number of creators. I’m wondering if these are just people who have recorded it in which case if you were playing a recording then royaties would be due, but if you were playing it yourself would it count as traditional?

In the 1960’s, this became a serious concern for the English Folk Dance and Song Society, whose directors were worried about lawsuits. A.L. Lloyd addressed the AGM about the nature of copyright, which appeared to bore almost everyone silly.
Names of songs and tunes, however, were duly written down at every performance in Cecil Sharp House (the headquarters) and presumably sent off to PRS, who apparently had just discovered the new cash cow.

But note farther on in maxF’s link:
“live music - no admission charge: 7.05pounds per session” which might not be unbearable if it came to that.

The whole thing, of course, is hilariously similar to dialogue from your standard gangster movie
“Nice little pub you have here. Be a shame if something happened to it”

Has anyone tried to claim back the copyright surcharge on blank cassettes or CDs when used solely for practice and live private recording?

“Just make up a list of silly names for the tunes” - Conan, that’s exactly what we did - look five posts above your’n

I’m a lawyer in Edinburgh. Although copyright law isn’t my field, I think the pub owner should see a lawyer, explain what is happening and get advice about the PRS demand. The issues that would arise would include:

1. The PRS is the agent of the composers. That means that they could sue on the composer’s behalf. It also means they can’t do anything about tunes by unknown composers (ie most traditional tunes), out of copyright (because of their age) or composed by people who aren’t their members.

2. It is questionable whether a “true” session - that is, a group of people sitting round playing music in a public place really qualifies as a performance, notwithstanding what the PRS leaflet says. A session with a leader paid by the pub might be different.

3. The first thing the PRS would have to do is identify the tunes and link them with composers who are their members. If you weren’t a traditional musician, how many reels do you think you could name on hearing them? I think they’d struggle. But if they can’t do that and prove it, they can’t sue.

4. The law doesn’t specify a set amount to be paid for each playing of a tune, so there would be an argument about amount of damages. Since the players at a session are making nothing from the music, and since the contribution of any single composer to the totality of the tunes played is likely to be very small, I suspect that the damages available wouldn’t be worth the cost of the court action.

Remember that the PRS is based in England, where there is legislation requiring the licensing of pubs with sesions as public entertainment - not the case in Scotland but it might well be that the PRS will have an English mindset about licences.

I repeat, this isn’t my field and the above comments shouldn’t be relied on as legal advice. But I do think that the PRS are chancing it a bit and would have trouble making anything stick. I also think that most composers of traditional style material wouldn’t mind the use of their material at sessions. Using it at a paid performance is, of course, a completely different issue.

Oooh…..I logged in to answer this and the format of the page changed……..now each posting is unjustified ( I think that’s the term ) and the words are spread out evenly across the page. Still the same mustard background though.
Anyway, to answer the question; I understand the PRS spread out their revunues across those that are registered with them and according to the amount each persons’ COMPOSITIONS get played ( sorry, don’t know how to italicise ), and logged. Thuis, if you are a member, and someone fills in their PRS return dutifully, saying they played your piece, you get some miserable fraction of the fee. Failing that most of the money goes to Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Mark Knoepfler, etc. The big argument re the EFDSS was that the year that “English Country Gardens” topped the hit parade ( a morris tune ), they accepted from the PRS a £200 cheque for ALL traditional music paid in Britain that year. There was then a drive ( I don’t remember that it was A.L.Lloyd leading this ) to get all the bands musicians and singers to register all their music, even saying it was their arrangement if it was traditional, and by filling in all the PRS returns at every venue the EFDSS would get some more money, and each band and performer would get some too. In 30 years of playing in bands I think I’ve seen two of these forms.
If you fill in a form, givivng fanciful names or not, saying all material irish trad. copyright CCE, Scottish trad copyright Scottish Fiddle and Bow Soc or whatever, english trad. copryright EFDSS, they might take their heavies off.
I’m sure it’s true that they don’t know or understand about traditional music, their only interest is in getting more money for their members.

I remember the Vicky Bar in Glasgow stopped the sessions in the 80s for a period, as another jealous bar owner reported them for not having an entertainments licence.
Could be a similair problem?