OT performing rights society

Radio stations have to do PRS returns as well..

I reckon a lot of this has come about due to the amount of money they are loosing through the loss of CD sales and the rise of downloading and file sharing...

Reply to
tony sayer
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In article , David Hansen scribeth thus

Same here and I have a few files which I'd love to -buy- the original versions of but there not available and the files are 128 MP3 which isn't CD;!..

Indeed Radio airplay was, and AFAIK still is, of great importance to expose and advertise new music or artists etc to the public. Why they seem hell bent of stopping it seems all arse about face;!...

Reply to
tony sayer

In article , David Hansen scribeth thus

Could be done with an iplayer transmitter 50 odd nanowatts IIRC but the whole thing is stupid .. and only that form of stupidity that the British can achieve;(...

Reply to
tony sayer

tony sayer coughed up some electrons that declared:

Exactly. That's where PRS levies clearly apply. Any argument that it applies to a few bods in a workshop is specious bollocks, law or no law.

Exactly, too. Do these people wonder if, it were possible to easily find and buy a track in a variety of formats (including less lossy ones than MP3) for, say around the 25-50p mark[1], that most people would rather do that and get a decent copy, rather than fart around with hunting down a torrent or P2P source, only to find a badly done rip.

Hell, the music industry dinosaurs might find it makes more revenue than now, and they wouldn't have to lose sympathy by alienating their customers.

Cheers

Tim

[1]

That would equate to 2.50 to 5 quid per typical album, but with vastly reduced distribution costs. I would suggest that this would allow a fair profit to all parties concerned without ripping off the consumer.

Even HMV shops could adapt and not lose out - by having booths where you could buy tracks and/or albums, pay and download direct to your player or a USB stick on the spot - good for browsers and people without broadband.

Reply to
Tim S

What galls me is that the artists in that position are usually also those who aren't seeing a penny from the PRS, even if you are having to pay the PRS.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

In message , Bruce writes

Rubbish.

Can I get a discount on the PRS protection racket if I promise to turn the radio off every time there's a song I don't like then? I don't buy stuff I don't like but it seems I have to if I want to listen to the radio in my place of work.

I don't work for free but I don't expect to be paid again and again for the same piece of work either. I also don't expect to be paid again every time my work is used by someone other than the original customer or when someone uses it in a public place where other people could see it or benefit from it. Especially given that other listeners are more than likely to have a TV license too.

If you're so sure it's a fair and valid business model though, how about you start the ball rolling, let's say every time someone who didn't pay for your PC software sees the screen, you send 10p to the manufacturer of the OS.

That's fair isn't it? After all you only paid for a license to use the software, you don't own it and I'm sure you'd not expect the software company to work for nothing would you?

Yes, they do deserve to be paid, but most if not all airplay is designed to promote and sell the product, not to entertain the listener. Tell me one record company that doesn't push music to make money?

I object to being made to pay for someone else's advertising against my will, at least I can choose not to buy a certain brand of soap powder or yoghurt so they should be paying me if I play their music to a wider audience because the wider exposure means they're likely to sell more.

PRS=QuANGO

Reply to
Clint Sharp

Yes, of course it does, because it is being re-broadcast so anyone in the vicinity can hear it. People listening through headphones are individuals, each of whom comes under the definition of personal use, which is paid for out of the TV licence fund or advertising.

I am surprised that you cannot see this very clear distinction, and that you had to come up with the ridiculous example of 10 people gathered together but listening to the same radio station *through headphones*!

But I suppose you needed a truly fatuous example to illustrate your truly fatuous argument. ;-)

Reply to
Bruce

A recent survey showed that 19 out of 20 music tracks being listened to on MP3 players were illegal copies or illegal downloads. That represents a huge amount of revenue that is being denied to musicians and composers.

If a high proportion of people respected copyright, prices could be lower. The trouble is that prices stay high because only a small proportion of music is being paid for.

No doubt you will suggest that, if the prices were lower, more people would buy legal copies. Well, I very much doubt that, because once the principle of copyright theft is as well established as it is now, the same people will still steal the music for nothing, and musicians and composers will get even less.

Reply to
Bruce

They are free for personal use, not for re-broadcasting to other people via loudspeaker(s).

I am surprised that you cannot see the distinction, which should be abundantly clear.

Reply to
Bruce

In article , Tim S scribeth thus

Nooooo!, you can't do that, its waay too sensible;!....

They don't seem to be able to move with the times;!..

Reply to
tony sayer

Bruce coughed up some electrons that declared:

It's not ridiculous - it is an illustration showing that the economics of 10 private listeners in the same space is the same for the PRS as one radio with 10 listeners in that space.

You already agree that 10 people listening to their own radio via headphones is OK, so why chase people in the other scenario?

I say that the reason is because they *can*, not because they *should*. They clearly think they've found an angle legally (which I dispute on moral grounds as argued above), so having established that they might be able to get away with screwing people for some more dosh, they, like their American brethren, are persuing it with reckless abandon. Let's make no bones about this - they found a way to screw people and screwing people is what they are doing.

I'd like to see exactly how much money the artist at the bottom of the food chain is seeing out of this fee.

Regarding the example above, 10 is a pretty round number that is quite refelective of the point in question: ie a few people in an office or workshop listening to some background radio.

10 is also quite distinct from 100, or 1000 or 10000 or 100000 which are the sort of numbers one would expect to find in an audience when a piece of music is being broadcast for general consumption (100 being a University radio station, Radio 1 being somewhere at the other end).

What's special about the workplace anyway. Why not demand the fee when you invite some mates around and play the radio at a party - that is just as much of a "re-broadcast"?

Do you work for the PRS?

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

You can't expect people to spend 10,000 quid to fill an iPod with music. Compare this with a typical collection of 100 CDs which are worth perhaps 1000 quid.

You are mistaking a CD sales crisis for a music crisis. Concert and festival attendances are booming. The percentage of people's incomes spent on music hasn't changed radically. Musicians (and composers) stand to make much more money than before with the use of the internet to promote themselves - it just doesn't need to support the recording industry behemoth companies we needed in the past.

Reply to
Jim

The distinction is clear to me. It is also abundantly clear that it is not sensible.

Reply to
Bob Eager

Bruce coughed up some electrons that declared:

and their "unions".

I don't disagree withthe notion artists deserve fair compensation - but the converse is equally true.

CDs are cheaper to make than cassettes - did that mean that CDs were cheaper? The industry has been accused of ripping people off for a long time and if they want to address the problem, they need to make the move to selling their wares in a more modern and cost effective way.

As I've said, I'll buy a track for 50p without a second thought, as long as it's in a decent format of my choice (that means OGG for me, NO DRM crap) and I can buy it on a whim from a website and shove it into as many players as I own.

What actually happens is that I neither download nor buy any music these days because I'll be damned if I'm paying upwards of 15 quid for an album on CD when I only want one track. Singles are an even worse rip off at 2-3 quid for 3-4 minutes of music.

The music industry needs some serious attitude readjustment as people are no longer prepared to be price gouged. The only difference over the last 3 decades is that now, illegally aquiring music is easier than it's ever been.

The only way to say if my assertion that cheaper music = more punters and less ripping would be to try it. Until then, I have some sympathy for the artists but none for those who would claim to represent them.

I notice that iTunes is managing to sell tracks for 79p. This is a step in the right direction and seems to suggest that my assertion that 3 quid for a single is a rip off. I find it hard to believe that the cost of distribution of a CD single is 2.21

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:13:24 +0000 someone who may be tony sayer wrote this:-

Indeed. One would also need to receive the original radio transmission and then re-broadcast it, in much the same way as a television relay.

AOL.

Reply to
David Hansen

Bruce coughed up some electrons that declared:

I'm not sure how you manage to confuse "playing audio in a limited physical space" with "broadcasting". Most people, including the dictionary I just looked at take "broadcast" to imply strongly that radio waves are involved as the broadcasting medium. I've never before heard anyone talk of playing a radio as "rebroadcasting".

Reply to
Tim S

If "playing a CD" or "turning on the radio" can be defined to be a "performance" I'm not sure that the English language is on our side here.

Reply to
Jim

The distinction you are making with tedious regularity is clear to everyone, but that doesn't stop it being a pedantic and stupid one, which is what every other sane person on here is trying to tell you. Back at ya that *you* appear not to be able to see *that* distinction ...

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

Jim coughed up some electrons that declared:

Yes - I'm saying the English language has been twisted to serve the PRS.

To a "normal person":

Performance: what an artist does when they present their work either publically or for the purposes of recording.

Broadcast: What an organisation does when presenting a recorded or live work to a mass of punters as the main purpose of its business.

I have some sympathy with requiring a performance fee for a business that would use a copyrighted track of music or video as part of its business, eg "on hold" music or lift musak, but to call that a "performance" is still twisting words.

I have no sympathy for attempts to equate Kwik Fit with Radio 1!

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

Many musicians and composers depend on the PRS for most of their income.

In contrast, you seem to want to be able to sponge off them for nothing.

Reply to
Bruce

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