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Public performance licences for radio listening amounts to “double taxation”, says radio man
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 8 April 2010
Neither of the collecting societies will like me for saying so, but it has always struck me a little bit cheeky that if people turn on a radio in an office or shop or bar the owner of that establishment must have a music licence from PPL and PRS, even though the radio station has already paid a healthy licence fee to both collecting societies for the public performance of their music.
Copyright law says both the radio station and the owner of the radio playing in a public space must have a licence, of course, but it does feel a bit like the music industry is being paid twice for the same thing. Certainly most of the office, shop and bar owners I know think so; and as a result the whole thing contributes to the “everyone in the music business is a money-grabbing bastard” perception.
The boss of commercial radio trade body RadioCentre called the phenomenon “double taxation” recently, when presenting to parliament’s Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee. Of course, with licensing revenues more important than ever to the music industry, both PPL and PRS have become more proactive in collecting licence fees off radio-playing offices, shops and bars in recent years.
Presenting to the select committee on this issue, RadioCentre’s Andrew Harrison argued that this increasingly proactive (or “aggressive” to use his words) approach to collecting public performance royalty fees was causing offices and shops to turn off their radios, hitting the commercial radio sector’s listening figures and, therefore, their revenues just at a time when the radio industry is facing its own challenges.
Harrison: “We already pay 10% of our revenue to license music. We pay the record labels, the PPL, and we pay the artists and composers, the PRS. We already pay once for that broadcast license. We think it is incredibly unfair that there is in effect double taxation on the consumers of our product that they are then obliged to pay for having the radio on in the workplace”.
He continued: “It would seem a transparent example of iniquitous double taxation. The evidence we are beginning to pick up is that the rather aggressive licensing demands that the collecting bodies like the PRS and the PPL are putting on small shops, offices, hairdressers and factories are beginning to lead to a flurry of people certainly writing to us”.
Harrison’s comments were made public this week when the select committee published a report on their recent investigations. Needless to say, both PPL and PRS were critical of Harrison’s viewpoint. The boss of the former, Fran Nevrkla, said in a statement: “We at PPL were rather taken aback by what we considered a cynical and shameless attack by the RadioCentre on the lawful rights of all performers as well as all the companies who make enormous annual investments in finding, supporting and nurturing new talent”.
He continued: “Music is hugely valuable to the businesses who choose to use it to enhance the atmosphere in their stores for their customers and their staff. It is not for the RadioCentre to interfere in the established and legitimate process by which performers and record companies are paid for all the benefits their recordings bring”.
The good news for PPL, PRS and the beneficiaries of the licence fees they collect is that the select committee was not convinced that either collecting society was “aggressive” in the way they collect royalties, nor that the requirement for offices and shops and the like to have a music licence for radio listening was having a major impact on radio listening figures.
Their report concluded: “We are not convinced by RadioCentre’s assertions that music licenses for radios in the workplace are either being aggressively collected, or are contributing to a downturn in radio listening. Performing artists have a right to earn from their work and the cost to businesses playing a radio is not unreasonable”.
