Pavane
Sorry to hear about the threatening letters - I don't have a TV and the TV licensing people keep sending me similar ones. When I called to clarify it cost me because there was no non-geographical number, and the customer service person acted like they were doing me a favour by making me hold..
Howard
Re the distribution:
It's really none of my business what Paul Simon earns in royalties, just how the PRS determine what someone's share is. And the answer is with big gigs and radio/TV (and thanks to the FRTM and MU Folk Festivals) everything's logged and therefore ring-fenced, going to those whose music is played), and with smaller gigs people can send in what's played online and they send people in to venues to sample what's played.

Derek
Re Socialist PRS
You're definitely right there.
Bureaucratic - yes.
Meritocratic - as far as is practicable
Dogmatic/pragmatic - I have known them to be both
Progressive re-distribution of wealth amongst songwriters - no thanks, not as policy, but...
protection of rights of songwriters and according re-distribution of wealth from copyright-infringers to copyright owners - yes please, art for art's sake, money for god's sake.

And on that note can I just add the following observation:

In my experience (limited to maybe a few hundred pub venues) there are as many places paying nothing at all as there are places who pay their dues - which means songwriters (and disproportionately the smaller songwriters, writers of Fiddler's Green, etc.) are not being paid where their music is making someone else money.
And this is not because of the PRS but rather the attitude of publicans, which is one that we see echoed rather a lot in the gutter press and online.

I don't think discussion here will change that situation: if the PRS had a cost-effective means of ensuring 100% compliance I'm sure we would have seen it by now - but that fact should be ever-present in any discussion about whether or not they eat babies.

Cheers

Dan