PRS for Music extents tariff review consultation…

Back in April, PRS for Music announced it was conducting a review of the Popular Music Concerts Tariff (Tariff LP). The original closing date for responses was June 8th but this was extended to allow the Concert Promoters Association to conduct further research. The deadline has now been extended to 30 September 2015.

At present concert promoters must pay a fee of 3% of gross receipts to PRS which is then distributed to songwriters and publishers of works performed at the concert. Historically this tariff has been a contentious issue for stakeholders, particularly promoters. Indeed, the promoters’ trade organisation, the aforementioned Concert Promoters Association, was founded in 1986 to oppose a proposed tariff increase from 2% to 6%. In 1988 the Copyright Tribunal set the existing rate at 3%. A review was conducted as recently as 2010 where the PRS decided no change was necessary.

It will be interesting to see how (if at all!) the debate has moved on since 2010. In the meantime PopRights’ Ken Barr wrote blog post about the Review for Live Music Exchange which can be found here.

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UK Music Launches Industry Manifesto!

That’s right, you heard it here first… UK Music launches its pre-election manifesto ahead of the UK General Election on May 7th.

Here are the, “five priority areas for the next Parliament and Government to focus on in order to maintain the industry’s £3.8 billion contribution to the nation’s balance sheet (i.e. GDP)” (UK Music Manifesto 2015).

1. Strong copyright framework
2. Access to finance and fiscal incentives
3. Skills pipeline
4. International growth strategy
5. Better regulation based on good evidence

Keywords: strong copyright…incentives…skills…growth…good evidence…

“I like a manifesto, put it to the testo!”

“Embedding Does Not Equal Copyright Infringement”

All this embedding and hyperlinking has been causing me considerable anxiety. Fortunately this EU ruling has helped me sleep a lot more soundly…

http://www.create.ac.uk/blog/2014/11/28/eu-ruling-embedding-does-not-equal-copyright-infringement/

(Though this doesn’t necessarily mean embedded content won’t mysteriously disappear in the night)

Bob Dylan: ‘Use It or Lose It’

In the same week that IPO consultation on term extension begins, Sony attempt to preempt the ‘Directive 2011/77/EU’ ‘use it or lose it’ clause concerning rights owners who fail to, “offer copies of the phonogram for sale in sufficient quantity or does not make it available to the public, by wire or wireless means” (Official Journal of the European Union) in the extended 20 year period. Failure to do so would result in the performers being able to terminate the agreements they have with the “phonogram producer” in order to exploit these recordings elsewhere.

This limited release (100 copies!) Bob Dylan: 50th Anniversary Collection of recordings made in 1962 and 1963 could signal the beginning a landslide of similar releases as increasing tranches of commercially viable material begin to enter the extended period. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, British Invasion etc…