I think the essential thing we need to be fighting for here is the freedom to make music. That's the issue pure and simple, and it is currently under attack from various quarters as we're all aware.

One of the attacks is from the PRS. Despite it only being a private company providing a service to copyright holders, it appears to be determined to exploit its monopolistic power base and also seems to be increasingly intent on representing itself as though it has statutary powers althouth it does not (though no doubt it would like to!). As someone who works from home (as so many do nowadays), I have regularly recieved official looking letters from PRS stating that as it is presumed that I listen to CDs whilst working, I have to have a commercial PRS license. Whilst I can see the legal argument underlying this, it seems to me to be entirely disproportionate and an abuse of the PRS's aquired power. Taken to its logical conclusion, anyone listening to a CD on a business trip (car, train or whatever), or even a working boatie listening to a CD on deck, would need such a license.

The same sense of disproportion applies to folk sessions (I use the term loosely). I don't know where the quoted figure of £7 something is arrived at, but given the amount of copyright material performed, and also bearing in mind that often most of the those in the room are performers rather than audience, I'd be surprised if properly calculated figure even amounted to anything economically viable to collect. The PRS should also be taking the interests and views of its member into account. Does Ralph McTell really want a royalty every time someone sings Streets of London in a pub session? If so, I'd be disappointed, but the vast majority of copyright holders, who are after all musicians themselves, would surely value the freedom to express music at this purely social level above any financial reward they could derive from the PRS's draconian impositions.

I will not go on about this now. The essential thing I think is to somehow re-establish the right to make music as an essential human right. If not, it will be subject to further attack, e.g. from the insurance companies, whose policy restrictions are increasingly having more effect in many quarters than legislation. In the meantime, I would be very interested to know from any PRS members present what scope there is under their consitution for members to actually exert influence over the draconion policies they are seemingly bent on pursuing.

As a newcomer to the list (and still only a guest), I would not be so presumptuous as to start a new thread, but would be worth doing? Perhaps what is needed is to categorise and quantify all the things which are restricting the right to make music at a social level, then take a broader view rather than focussing on detail or getting sidetracked into dealing with symptoms (e.g. Sam Smiths) rather than causes.

Mally
Sandbach