Anyone had any dealings with these parasites?

 

(And please note I may have to move this to "members only" depending on the replies.....!)

 

At work on Friday I had a phone call from one of their "representatives" asking me a couple of questions about my company. First one was do I play any music at work - CDs radios etc etc; to which the answer is a definite "no!"

 

Now I am fully aware who they are, from my days as an accountant when I had a couple of pubs/clubs as clients. The PRS charges an annual fee for a licence to play music to the public and passes royalties on to the relevant artistes on their books. Although I do feel that charging for listening to the radio is a bit of a cheek; since musicians receive royalties from radio airplay already.....:no:

 

But, not satisfied with that he started quizzing me about the music my telephone system plays when callers are placed on hold. Now I have a quite a complex phone system supplied by BT and the music he referred to was a jazz-type ensemble which is built into the telephone hard drive. It's nothing more than a glorified "polyphonic" arrangement.....

 

.....and this leech on society wanted to charge me over £200 for the privilege:cursing:

 

Needless to say I called him a petty little Hitler and told him where to go. Like I said; if I played CDs etc that could be heard by the public then OK; but a pre-programed phone system that has an electronically generated "on hold" tune? Oh please.........:no: So now I'm waiting for the court papers........

 

So, if you are in business - beware!! If you have a radio on at work you could be liable for an annual sub running into hundreds (or if you've over 25 staff, thousands) of pounds. BTW Kwik Fit has been fined over £200k for failing to pay their PRS subs.......

 

Big brother is watching you!!!

 

Richard:saddam:

in a word.....W@nkers!

Owned a car sales for 4 years could not have a TV or Radio also worked as a car audio installer. PRS are a pain in the ass.

yeah they can be real pain to deal with ..

My mum has a pub in Southport town centre, and the Fee that sky tv want to provide her with a service is criminal, as if the pub trade wasnt in enough trouble, and she cant let the kitchen staff listen to the radio, just incase the public hear the music.

 

Its all wrong!!!!!

I've heard they are targeting everyone at the moment. I know some people have resorted to playing Royalty free stuff just to get round giving the chancers the dosh

 

http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/

I play in a band in many different types of venues, mostly hotels/marquees etc, and ive never had any dealings with PRS in over 20 odd years of performing. I think its the venue that pays PRS an annual fee, god knows how its distributed, how would they know what songs are played to be able to make that decision.

I think its all a money making scam and that it doesnt go to the artistes, but into a pool for the Organisers and workers of PRS.

 

I agree with the PRS in principle but there are too many flaws in the arrangement.

 

Just my opinion

PRS and MCPS are the twats that run around trying to force people to pay for stuff. Tell them that your music is provided by PC to your staff individually by headhphones from something like spotify.

 

As for your phones its *****cks its got to be real music and BT would have had to clear anything. Thing is you will get caught for this every year now.

 

Music industry is a discrace all this money does not even get distributed fairly as the top names get 99% of it all as it is distributed based on samples of radio and TV play.

 

All complete *****cks

We had to pay £600 a year in order to play any music in the pub.

 

Incidentally, pubs just won a court battle over this :- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8513734.stm

.................I agree with the PRS in principle but there are too many flaws in the arrangement.

 

Just my opinion

 

Don't get me wrong - so do I. If an establishment is playing pre-recorded to the public then there should be some way of collecting royalties for the musicians and passing it on. However I disagree that playing a radio should be included - the musicians already receive royalties for radio airplay before you or I have coughed up to the PRS....:cool2:

 

............As for your phones its *****cks its got to be real music and BT would have had to clear anything. Thing is you will get caught for this every year now...................

All complete *****cks

 

I know mate - BT provided the music so I guess it belongs to them. I told Master Hitler that I would not waste my time finding out! So if he decides to take legal action I will produce the evidence and make them look daft in court!!! No way am I paying a sub for what is an electronic polyphonic tone.....:no:

 

Thing is, ultimately this could kill off local radio stations. Small businesses will not want to pay hundreds of pounds in a recession to play the radio. So local radio stations will not be listened to during the day, consequently they could lose vital advertising revenue and fold. Plus if people listen to the radio at work and hear a song they like, they are more likely to buy the CD or download - without the radio on they won't hear new stuff - so the musician's record sales will drop. So in the end the very people the PRS is set up to protect will suffer.......:(

 

Richard:surrender:

My employer had to pay just over a hundred notes to the PRS just for me to listen to the radio in my office at work. Kinda feels like legitimate scamming (if there is such a thing) if you ask me.

Bureaucracy gone mad imo:hammer:

pm'd you rich

regards

chris

Tell them you only listen to Talksport!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep PRS should be consigned to the dustbin where it belongs. If you look at its board members, quite a few cronies from the music industry who have chaired or managed publishing and distribution companies. Estelle Morris is even an external board member! She was a total non-job ex-government minister if ever there was one ... Hardly surprising that this self-serving bunch have managed to elevate themselves to the position of monopoly rent-seeking by license fee privilege, much like the BBC does. All "not for profit" of course.

 

When the company is quoted in the FT as saying

For us the important thing is to be able to collect in new ways and new places

 

You get that kind of itching sensation to get to heart of the matter concerning their privileged 'collections' ... so I just had a look at their 2008 financial results, and I quote:

 

90% of PRS members earn less than £5K per annum from their

performance royalties. Less than 5% of members earn more than £20,000

(in fact more than 57% of our members earn less than £250 a year in

royalties). Royalties are vital to these members who typically take on

other employment to support their music career.

 

So unless my calculations are incorrect, it gets broken down as following:

 

£549m total revenue 2008 (£608.2m less admin £68.5m)

 

60000 Legislatively (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988) reinforced rent-seekers in total

34200 57%

19800 90% (above 57%)

3000 95% (above 90%)

3000 5% fat cat remainder > £20k each @ min £373m

 

So that is a minimum £373 million shared between 3000 'entities', averaged at £124.3k each, but if the upper bracket statistics threshold is £20k, you know someone is sitting pretty.

 

Doubtless this money is then spent on lobbying to beat us with the prohibition stick? Because it doesn't appear to be going to the artists ... Is it me or does it just seem rather draconian to prohibit someone creating acoustic vibrations in the air? :ph34r:

Oh and Admin @ £68.5m a year?! Yeah, right :whistling:

Yep PRS should be consigned to the dustbin where it belongs. If you look at its board members, quite a few cronies from the music industry who have chaired or managed publishing and distribution companies. ? :

 

lol. i used to be in business with Ellis Rich (prs chairman), i'll tell him you're p'off next time i see him :D

Please do :) I mean I'm all for a bit of capitalist endeavour, but when you start casting people as criminals for their use of culture its a different matter.

We ran into an issue last year. I work for a large Law firm so have to check everything is legal.

 

We were installin the ability to stream video to our PCs and were told that we wouldn't need to declare for that BUT as our PCs had sound cards and access to the internet, if we allowed sound to be played, people may play music from the internet and we would have to pay a license of £20,000 :cursing:

 

We told them very quickly that we would disable the use of WAV, AAC MP3 files throught the firewalls.

 

We still have to pay £260 for the on hold music though as it is some clasical music our senior parner insisted we have instead of the free music. :2guns:

No wonder people are sooooooooo fooked off, soooo much *****x about its amazing , cretinous tossers should be vapourised!

 

Tony