Thank you Tom.

How would you feel if I said you should not be paid for your job?

This takes us back to the original post. There are jobs and there are jobs.

If the proposed busking day and the set site for busking were a way of rewarding buskers - the site being licensed and the money from this going toward a pool of registered buskers - such a setup would recognise the difference between buskers and conventional performers. I don't think this is what is being proposed.

The busker performs and then leaves it to their public whether to pay or not. I suspect that such a system would not be thought sufficient for most conventional performers who would expect a fee.

So the conventional performer at least is paid for their job but I acept that this may still leave the composer unrewarded.

I suspect that in the PRS proposal the returns from any fixed busking site would to PRS members and just who would pay for this licence is unclear but I suspect that it would be the buskers who would be expected to provide these funds in some way. A Local Authority may initially pay for this licence but would probably charge the buskers to recoup their costs.

Given the almost impossible challenge that collecting royalties on music presents in this free-for-all day and age, the PRS system is largely fair (ok, with occasional faults) and certainly better than any alternative system I've been able to dream up.

I think that a fairer method can be found and that it is the angle of approach that is preventing most difficulties in finding it. It is the creation of the music for its own sake that is more important that enabling those to make a living from music who have chosen to make it their job.

But their brief is to maximise revenue for their members - it's why they exist.

Indeed and in the blind pursuit of this, it is often the music making that is adversely affected and any system which does this to any extent or accepts some damage as inevitable, is not one that should be supported or excused but replaced with a system which does not do this.