Be Excellent To Each Other

Google and the PRS fall out over the "premium" music videos:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7933565.stm

As I have stated in the past, I hope the PRS die in a chemical fire. Useless money grabbing shower of arseholes who couldn't find their arseholes with the aid of both hands but would charge you for listening to them try.

Thankfully Betty Boo isn't "premium" so we can still enjoy her for free:

Curse those promotional videos! Curse them for being a manner on which to enjoy the tracks and then somehow purchase the albums said tracks may exist on! They're leeching off the artists allowing us to hear this advert for free!

When they play an advert for an album/concert on the TV or Radio, someone will be paying the PRS a fee for the right to "perform" the music on the advert. I shit you not. And the PPL and the MCPS.

It's a total utter gravy train where money travels around in circles and the performers are so stupid they actually support it.

Wait, what? If you want to advertise an album, in order to sell that album and make money for the producers/artists, you have to pay the PRS, who then in theory take that money and....what - give it back to you?

Well there's a direct correlation with the number of middlemen involved and the amount of profit that the artists generate. Ask Trent Reznororrorro. R. Got to get as many maggots in the wound as possible, ya kna.

I heard that on the news tonight and shouted at the television.

I've already 'had my say' on a popular news website, although I fear my "whose the daddy now, bitches?" position may see me censored to some degree.

As the broadcaster you'll have to pay the PRS on it, yes. You "performed" it. Music has so many people involved in it that everyone wants their cut.

And of course, the PRS put all the money in a big pot and "redistribute" it. Except they are like a reverse Robin Hood as everything goes into a big pot and the most popular bands get the biggest cut. Hence why Cliff and co are so keen to back these organisations. Colostomy bags don't come cheap you know!

ANd which news website is that, my glorious silky maned forest wanderer?

Wait so, in order for EMI to advertise U2's new album on ITV, say, they would give ITV a fee - call it £100. Of that £100, £10 would be a fee for the performance rights. That £10 would then go to the PRS, who would then give it back to EMI, after presumably creaming their operating costs off the top?

That's fucking bonkers!

Yep, except as a broadcaster you usually pay a "blanket" license to cover everything.

It seems much more than that, too. Taking this line from Teh Guardian's website: "PRS controls licencing for the music and lyrics, without which live or pre-recorded songs cannot be performed." Means that if, say, Tina Turner wanted to do a live concert singind her own songs in London, she'd have to pay the PRickS for the privilege to do so.

The venue has to pay. Venues usually have blanket licenses.

The music industry is really the last bastion of the kinds of restrictive practices that were done away with in the 80's. How they escaped both Thatcher and New Labour is beyond me. Generous donations to whatever party is in power probably......

I know lots of musicians struggle, but the system is broken.

And the system is so fiddly, complex and expensive they do themselves out of money. It can be cheaper to approach a composer direct and bung them 500 quid to produce a custom track for a production than license something. I'm doing a sell through DVD at the moment that is going to cost 35 quid per 30 seconds of music. It soon adds up and that is only for a block of 1000 copies. That's for cheap library stuff as well.

Better still.

You are a musician in your spare time. You run a shop. You record an album. You decide to play it in your shop.

You need a PRS licence to play your own album in your own shop.

I really think it's the time for the middlemen to die.

What has destroyed my faith in the 'cool rock and roll stars' of this generation is that none of them have realised that you don't need to be signed anymore.

At some point some band is going to make it big, without being signed.

Then it will all change.

[This post contains hopes and (pipe?)dreams]

The whole system is fucked, I constantly rant at people about this, much to people's annoyance, but it's true!

Stop buying records.
P2P all the records you want.
Get the email addresses of the bands whose albums you don't delete off your hard drive cos you like them and Paypal them a quid per album.
Better System.*

*Over exaggeration and ranting ridiculousness accepted. But seriously, SPOTIFY (or similar) HURRY THE FUCK UP AND FIX THIS FUCKNG MESS!

Are you a member of PRS?

They are terminal already. Plunder the internet, gorge yourself on music and when you know your new favourites, find out (preferably from the band themselves) where they make their best cut of the profit (don't assume, some bands make more from albums than tours, oddly) and plough some in through those means.

If everyone did this all the time, we'd tip the scales a lot sooner. As for gigs, the sooner venues know their punters don't like their pay-to-play policies the better.

Just thought though - surely then listening to music on a player with headphones on a bus where every person on there can hear all the song, that must constitite a performance the same as a garage having radio 2 on! In which case let the PRS hand out on-the-spot fines, direct them to the buses and they'll rid us of one plague whilst removing themselves from the real musical food chain forever.

Score.

If you want to play any music, you need the licence. Then the cost of royalties for your own music is part of it.

Friend went through this. It was like trying to persuade the TV licence people that you don't have a TV.

How can they possibly pay you if you're not a member of their organisation?

They money goes to Cliff, Madonna and co. Which is why the blanket licenses are a mockery. If you form a band and perform a gig with your own songs in a venue, that venue is still paying the blanket PRS fee regardless. Same with a radio station, if you are unsigned the blanket fee just gets split between the people who are signed.

There is no alternative, they are operating a cartel. In any other industry the fair trading people wouldn't allow it.

This sounds like a job for MR. SMITH! By which I mean I ring them up and ask them, and record it.

what up?!

Meh. Sounds more like a job for:

One of the members of this board posted a very good blog post about how supporting the bands you like through visiting their live gigs, or sending them money in this way isn't really a good idea.

Plus it misses out the auxillary people for that band, such as producers or external song-writers.

But yes, the current system is far from perfect. In this day and age, with the amount of computing power tied to radio stations and shop sales, we could have far more accurate data that would avoid the need for blanketing. Same with TV ratings.

If you sing a song when walking along the street, that constitutes a public performance and money is due.

I like how hes still got the tag on the trainers so he can take them back after the photoshoot.

Avoid this by being like most people, and only humming less than 30 seconds of the chorus. Over and over again.

In related news, Lars Ulrich downloads own album illegally.

Also, why oh why can no one spell 'fascist' correctly. It makes you look like you hate Rod Stewart (which, actually, I'm fine with—carry on!).

Hiya.

Good post.

[edit]There's a typo in the third paragraph: 'recoupl'

Then you get Sandi Fucking Thom.

Mr Chris, Craster and Mr Dave launch new album, "Oi can't believe we've got a telephone":

So if I keep just going to gigs, buying from indie record and charity shops, borrowing friends CDs, buying direct from the artist and torrenting some stuff, will I avoid giving these fuckers any money?

I was suggesting that about cunts with overly-loud headphones or phones-with-speakers on Another Forum ages ago.

My idea was, I think, along the lines of alerting the PRS to the cavalier attitude of bus operators towards the little people performing on buses. I imagine the sort of blanket fee they'd want off Arriva would soon result in audio-tracking sentry guns on every bus.

"You have 20 seconds to comply"
<twat turns his phone off>
"You now have 10 seconds to comply"
"But but but but!"
*BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAMMO!*

See, I think I'd be alright with the PRS and its schemes if that was the result.

Just a thought, unless I've got this completely arse upwards.

The PRS wants payment for the premium channels. The premium channels - by definition - are run by the record companies to put official videos on. Google/YouTube have no control over what gets placed on those premium channels.

So Record Label puts up video in order to promote Band X and their latest single. And then the PRS try to sting Google for money. Why don't they ask the bloody record label for it? It seems like the PRS is charging Google for the privilege of letting its members promote their music.

I've just been on the phone with PRS.

If you're the copyright holder of a piece of music, then you don't need a PRS license to play it live or mechanically within a shop. Also, you can play songs by bands that aren't PRS affiliated, provided you're given a license to do so by them.

Like it says on the website, and like I said before, PRS are* only concerned with public performance of music where a member holds the copyright.

* or bloody well should be.

But they do have have a record of getting shitty with people as if they were the police etc. Demanding proof when they have no right, and making assumptions. Same tactics as the TV licensing people.

Good to know about the shop thing, although I suspect that only applies if you own the shop yourself. You'd also need to ensure you owned all aspects of the song. So cover versions of other people are a no no.

What are the other cases?

Assuming no party is a member of PRS, Shop X couldn't play my music unless I let them, and I couldn't play music by X Records unless they let me. Naught to do with the PRS there.



Which is logical.

Er, Sandi Fucking Thom is the exact opposite of what I'm talking about. Crap shit muscian getting her self signed to Sony at first opportunity. And has a history of dubious internet use, suggesting media fakery.

Who doesn't?

Ah, but she might not have done. And until she did she was exactly what you're talking about. The internet is Bad and makes Bad People get rich and famous. BURN IT WITH FIRE

The PRS go after the police:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/8004072.stm

Give us 30 grand or we'll get you, er, arrested.

Jesus. The PRS really are a bunch of utter cunts.

They're the fun Gestapo. I'm surprised they don't hang around buskers demanding that everyone in earshot give them 5p.

I'd imagine the full quote would be somewhat longer and more correct.

On the plus side, Wiltshire Police is the scummiest force in the country, so anything which makes them miserable is to be applauded.

New PRS rates for streaming media



or.. 'oops, we'd quite like that Youtube money actually'