With respect, this is a little more complicated than some of the above posts would suggest, and as misinformation can be unhelpful in the greater scheme of things, with your permission I'd like to set a few things straight.

As their website says; PRS is owned and run by its members; the creators of music, not some government quango. I've been a member for a long time and always found them approachable, helpful and willing to take ideas and complaints on board.

It doesn't cost £100 a year to be in PRS. There is a one off joining fee of £100, and thereafter a percentage system operates, so members are soon into profit. Your music does not have to have been published or recorded for you to be eligible for PRS writer membership, so all UK Mudcatters who write or perform (ergo 'arrange') trad material may join.

Even small-time writers like me do well out of PRS. Apart from royalties from radio plays and larger concerts and festivals, there is a system called the 'gigs and clubs scheme' which does not require lists of songs to be submitted by the promoter (as is the case with designated 'concert' venues such as folk festivals, arts centres and the larger clubs) , but rather a 'standard' set list submitted by artists for every the pub or club gigs that we do which is not covered by 'concert' sales. This pays out many hundreds of pounds per annum to an artist like me who mainly does his own material - a useful part of my income, so the money does get to the right people at least some of the time.

I'm not sure where the demand for £700 came from. Since the demise of the old two-in-a-bar rule the PRS licence is now, I believe, collected with all the other licences that a pub has to have to operate so either a pub is licensed for music (of any type; live, muzac, juke box or kareoke) or it isn't. But I may be wrong about this.

As for whether people should (through beer sales, in this case) pay a tiny amount for the right to enjoy performing someone else's copyright material in a public place, well, that's a different debate, but as we usually do have to pay in one way or another for the use of anything at all made by some artisan as part of his living, I for one think it's fair.

Paying to play you own songs seems a bit much, of course, but as its really impractical to split the music played in sessions and clubs down to the constituent categories of 'own copyright/unregistered,' 'copyright/registered,' 'copyright arrangement' and 'out of copyright' I don't have too much problem with the PRS's catch-all system. Even if it does cost £700 a year, £2 a day doesn't seem so very steep to me given the profit that pubs make on beer (which is only fizzy dirty water after all!)

The suggestion that people lay claim to traditional tunes and lyrics is also erroneous. It IS possible to register an ARRANGEMENT of an out-of-copyright work, ONLY - in which case the arranger will receive royalties for performances of that arrangement only (in other words usually for his own performances of that work, ONLY). Everyone else is still free to perform or record that song or tune, for free, or if they chose make their own arrangement - for which they will get - if they join PRS - a fair fee.

There is of course a debate to be had over whether this is fair or not, but when you start to examine the options seriously you soon realise that you need to draw a line somewhere, because not all publicly-owned material is what we folkies call 'trad' and some arrangements really are very original and do deserve a royalty. The most logical place to draw that line seems to me where it is drawn now: IE arrangements are copyright, while the works themselves remain free to all.

Hope that's helpful

Tom