Nice to hear you alive and well Tom and hope you are happy in your new home. We were on holiday in Guernsey last week so envious of your life in the channel islands!

However, the PRS subject. Having read all the threads would comment as follows:

As an organiser of the Banbury Folk Club, I have mixed feelings about PRS. Of course we would not want songwriters not to profit from the writing of their songs but from all accounts (as portraid in a lot the comments) PRS is not socialistic! I am all for the big boys getting a lower share of the PRS pot in favour of the small boys getting more as the big boys get more than enough from their big takes at gigs. Doing that would give the lesser known artists at least a living wage. Also, the bigger promoters should have to pay more when they have massive door takes so that poor folk clubs, like ours and many others, would not always be at risk of folding because they cannot afford it. Every club that folds is a loss to the musicians who rely on them to perform (and by doing so improving performance, getting their songs/tunes known and as a result the opportunity of going up in the scale of fame). The public also lose out on the availability of a type of music they prefer.

When there are so many anti PRS feelings out there, I am surprised that there does not seem to be anyone who has tried to find out, under the freedom of information act, how much money PRS receives and distributes annually and how much they hold in assets. With that information, interested parties lobying for a fairer system would have a better informed argument.

Derek