But why have you shifted this to the UK licensing laws, when the UK licensing laws have nothing to do with copyright or whether you're allowed to sing someone else's songs?

All roads lead to Rome - well they seem to in this country. Well all roads lead to your road and tend to complicate our lives.

If you had read this thread - you would understand. I will explain

The original decision of a pub chain (Sam Smiths) not to pay for an increase in PRS/PPL fees meant that they were going to have a non-music policy. Dave's pub in question being one of these.

So quite sensibly this followed that with a non- music policy there was no need for any of these pubs to apply for entertainment permission when they applied for their Premises Licence.

So if/when they solve or avoid the PRS/PPL problem - the pubs will not be able to provide any Regulated Entertainment without re-applying for entertainment permission.