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  • DJ's – ProDub Licence?
  • MRanger156
    Free Member

    Hi,

    Im organising our clubs annual awards dinner and have arranged for a friend to DJ. The venue have asked to see the DJ’s PRS License – is this normal and how can you get one? How much does it cost?

    bokonon
    Free Member

    If the DJ can demonstrate to the venue that they are only using the originally purchased media (i.e. original vinyl, original CD’s or originally legally downloaded mp3’s) then they don’t need a pro-dub license, the venue’s license will (should) cover DJ’s playing music – that is unless the venue doesn’t hold a PRS for music license – but given they are asking to see the pro-dub license, then it would generally mean that they do, and they are concerned that the DJ not holding the license will render their license invalid, which if they are not using the original media, then it would be, and they would be liable to be pursued for the lost income via civil action against them by the individual artists.

    (I won’t go off on one about the latest round of PRS licenses being little more than the last wheeze of a dying industry, failing to adapt…)

    MRanger156
    Free Member

    The venue have asked for his PRS license, sorry thought they were the same thing.

    bokonon
    Free Member

    There are lots of different licenses you can get from PRS, all of which cover slightly different things, for slightly different activities – the Pro-dub license, is specifically for DJ’s, specifically for the purposes of covering the “format shutting” aspects of what many DJ’s currently do: “The rights being granted under the ProDub Licence allow individuals to make copies of recordings they own on to various formats.” – the venue will also have a performance license to allow the music to be played.

    PRS are encouraging venues to not allow DJ’s to perform if they don’t hold the license – even if there is no legal requirement for them to hold the license (which in some cases there might be, and in some cases there might not be).

    The total cost is around £255 per year (incl. VAT, and tax deductible in some circumstances.) the take up seems most prevalent in dance and aerobics instructors…

    sideshow
    Free Member

    God that’s silly. I haven’t run a nightclub promotion in about three years so I’m a bit out of date. It used to be that the venue was PRS licensed and DJs weren’t. They’re usually skint anyway! If that’s changed it sounds like PRS trying to ruin the party as usual (none of the people whose music was played at our nights would ever have received money from PRS anyway).

    bokonon
    Free Member

    PRS are running a very real risk of running themselves into complete obscurity by choosing to act as a quasi-governmental licensing authority, rather that the working on behalf of artists private collections agency that they are – the business model they operate benefits the biggest artists over everyone else, and places legal use of music outside the realms of affordability for all but financially successful DJ’s – meaning that people just don’t pay, rather than PRS offering something they could actually afford (e.g. the aforementioned license is the cheapest, but covers users for up to 5,000 tracks copied – whilst DJ’s might have a large number of tracks, those not in it for the cash, and doing it for a mate are unlikely to have 5,000 tracks, so a cheaper license for less tracks would be better (even paying the additional 51p per track that the license implies would be a better option).

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