We have a new music/speaker system in our shop and want to know people’s opinions on this licensing?
Do you/your company play music?
It’s near on £350!!!

If you want to play music in a public environment you should be prepared to pay the musicians. If you’re not prepared to do that then don’t play the music.

PRS and PPL are responsible for ensuring royalties are paid to musicians and songwriters. Please pay me for the privilege of playing my music (ok maybe not mine but you get the idea) to your customers

Yeah I appreciate that.
It’s a lot of money for a small business though, and although non profit making, I’m sure very little actually reaches the artists

Less than a quid a day to play music.

Just listen to the radio. Then you need only buy a TV licence.

It’s a lot of money for a small business though

then you’ll appreciate that a lot of artists are the same; struggling.

https://licensing.jamendo.com/en/in-store

Random hit off google, others available.

All the free lisence options don’t seems that great and the good ones are as expensive.
£1 a day sounds more manageable but they want you to pay all up front rather than monthly dd.
I just want to hear other shop/business owner opinions

We pay about £80 each for both licences. That’s because we have a “small radio” and never play CDs or anything. 😉
There’s no way around it I’m afraid.
Edit. If you listen to non music radio you are ok. You can also listen to Amazing Radio as they own all the copyright.

Really, if you want to run a business and play music, paying for the license should be something you’ve accounted for in your costs. It shouldn’t be unexpected.

It is piss taking. The radio station has to pay to play the music. We have to pay to listen. It’s not audible by our customers just something for us to listen to.
Our local Turkish restaurant plays CDs by musicians from their village back home. Their ppl /prs bill is huge. The musicians don’t get a penny of it.
A lady in a chippy got fined for singing to her customers.
When I asked the PRS to supply me with a copy of their PPL licence they just hung up on me.
Not sure what the deal is with having a telly in the shop.

Amazing radio are no longer offering lisence free music.
But they do offer a internet modem thing that access their massive catelogue of lisence free music from differ eve genres but it costs as much per year as the ppl and prs lisence

Yeh, sounds like a scam. You could play music from artists that aren’t signed up to PRS if you want to stay legit. Plenty of free stuff on soundcloud etc.

Not strictly true about Amazing Radio, but for the listener the end result is the same.

Artists signing up to AR do so waiving their royalty rights on the off chance that sufficient exposure will lead to either a proper record deal, where the record company chases up the radio stations for royalties, or a bigger national station picks up on the artist. End result may well be the same.
Bin d’eyre dun dat

Well an email directly from amazing radio states that we still have to pay both ppl and PRS as their station still plays licenced music.

john_drummer – Member
If you want to play music in a public environment you should be prepared to pay the musicians. If you’re not prepared to do that then don’t play the music.

PRS and PPL are responsible for ensuring royalties are paid to musicians and songwriters. Please pay me for the privilege of playing my music (ok maybe not mine but you get the idea) to your customers
Fine, if you’re playing CD’s, or from a computer. But how about the radio? How can it be justified that you have to fork out for a PRS licence, when the royalties have already been paid by the relevant radio station, and the premises are listening via a radio receiver, they are not broadcasting. That’s double-dipping taxation, and immoral, as far as I can see.

Apologies for being out of date on Amazing.

Looks like I’m a bit out of date there too 😳

CZ I can see where you’re coming from re radio. Immoral? Perhaps. Do you ever drink in Starbucks? Or buy from Amazon?

So the premises/business is a sentient being with ears, and the music they’re delivering can’t be heard by any other sentient beings?

Presumably you’re also suggesting that if you cue up your Hozier CD at the same time as the radio is playing him then you should pay, but not if you flick the switch from CD to radio – despite exactly the same thing* coming out of the speakers.

*unless of course you have hifi buffs in who can tell the difference.

I have to pay and it is a tax I really hate. How much actually gets to the writers/performers? Why have two collectors PPL and PRS? When they ring for payment they give you the third degree and are very obnoxious.

We play local radio which is really shit; loads of adverts, half wit presenters and the same songs on a loop day after day. If we play C.D’s then the cost is much higher. For me total cost is around £700 per year for a bit of background music.

I’m sure very little actually reaches the artists

Any proof in that?
If you don’t want to pay don’t play radio/music in the workplace/shop/customer areas. Or write and record your own. 🙄

FWIW When I worked in our local NHS it was on in both public areas and offices, we didn’t signup/pay (it would’ve come out of my departments budget).

Morally, only play your local station?

I’ve had to pay for 20 years to have a radio in my wife’s hair salon.
It used to be just ppl but about 5 years ago PRS poped up and sent a bill. It’s about £170 for the two.
Had a proper barny with PRS as they tried to fine me and charge me for back dated years.
Offered to pay everything they wanted as long as they gave me evidence of a specific copyright that had been breached. They both have very underhand tactics during telephone calls, pretending there doing market research is one of them (how many employees, what radio stations do you listen to etc)
Shysters if you ask me!

friend had a proper barney with PRS and or PPL too.
only had Creative Commons licensed music (see that Jamendo link above), and had paid a tenner to those group he like the most. PRS/PPL state simple “You’re playing music, you have to have a licence”. He just kept replying “I have 100% (free) creative commons music and the authors have been paid directly (although there’s no obligation), please send an inspector at any time not advertised in advance to audit the PC to see if there is any music to which you have royalty collection rights”. So PRS/PPL reply “You’re playing music, you have to have a licence”… ad infinitum.

That was in a back room of a shop, music not listenable from the shop.

Shysters? Yup. But the German GEMA is worse (they have a constitutional right to assume royalty collection right on anything that sounds like music, and block so much of Youtube that Germany was at one point 3rd behing North Korea and Iran for blocked videos!).

Would a spotify subscription get round it?

true or urban myth?

Would a spotify subscription get round it?

I doubt it. Technically if you have a BBQ in your back garden and play music you should have a license!
Spotify is just paying to listen, same as buying a cd. To broadcast it is different.

Urban myth I recon but possible if she’s singing a song someone else wrote.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/8317952.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/8317952.stm

Madness!

The principle is that the music somehow increases sales, the business gets a financial benefit from playing the music, therefore that should be shared. I get that. There are several problems with that, though – what if the business isn’t getting a financial benefit? A radio in a workshop won’t increase the amount of repair work that workshop gets.

Secondly, why do profits have to be shared? If I sell a bike, I get money from that. If the purchaser then goes on to use it in a multi-million pound advertising campaign or something, making him a lot of money, do I deserve a share of that money?

Does playing music in a shop lead to decreased sales elsewhere for that artist? I’d guess the opposite – in fact there’s a case that the business is owed money by the record company for promoting their artists.

@ brant. But she wasn’t fined.

In a note attached to a large bouquet of flowers they said: “We’re very sorry we made a big mistake.

So yeah not fined and they admitted they were wrong.

Section 72 of the CDPA is also worth a read:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/72

I reckon chip shop lady is true. Wasn’t there so can’t prove it.
When prs started hassling us I looked for ways out.
Came across the chip shop story it named people and pla(i)ces.

Technically if you have a BBQ in your back garden and play music you should have a license!

No, no you don’t unless it’s not a private event.

Christ you’d need one for you kids’ musical statues if that was the case.

Came across the chip shop story it named people and pla(i)ces.

Did you only read the headline?

@ brant. But she wasn’t fined.

@bruneep – I was just providing some reading. She wasn’t fined.

Just remembered apparently you don’t need a licence if you are playing music to demonstrate that a musical device works.
I’m sure someone on here has put a price on their radio so it’s available for sale.

Is it? I thought the principle was that musicians should get paid for their work if it is broadcast to members of the public.

the business gets a financial benefit from playing the music, therefore that should be shared. I get that. There are several problems with that, though – what if the business isn’t getting a financial benefit?

In that case the solution is simple – turn off the music. If there’s no benefit to your business from playing it, then it’s a no-brainer, and I’m not sure why such a business would be bothered by PRS.

According to the link given by Ben, only if it is necessary to demonstrate the equipment works – it’s not a general get out.

Is it? I thought the principle was that musicians should get paid for their work if it is broadcast to members of the public.

If that’s the principle, then why do PPL/PRS want money for playing the radio? It’s already being broadcast to the public, so they’re already getting airplay fees. That’s double charging for the same broadcast.

In that case the solution is simple – turn off the music. If there’s no benefit to your business from playing it, then it’s a no-brainer, and I’m not sure why such a business would be bothered by PRS.

What if it’s just the mechanics in the workshop or whatever listening to the radio? It’s of no financial benefit to the business, it doesn’t increase profits, it’s just something for the staff to listen to.

What if it’s just the mechanics in the workshop or whatever listening to the radio? It’s of no financial benefit to the business, it doesn’t increase profits, it’s just something for the staff to listen to.

like a TV in the canteen then, you need a licence for that too.