Dan,

It's naive to say that small gigs can get logged. The PRS now seems to discourage small venues from submitting returns, they're too time-consuming to process. They prefer to rely on sampling, however this isn't representative, since the repertoire can vary considerably from one club or session to another. PRS recognises this with its "pubs and clubs scheme", but this is specifically aimed at PRS members performing their own material.

Anyway, it's the licence-holder's responsibility to submit a return - for most folk clubs and sessions that's the pub landlord, who is simply not interested in doing so. In 40 years of performing in public the only times I've been asked to provide information for PRS is at big festivals or by the BBC.

Informal sessions and singarounds are a particular problem since there's no set playlist, and it's unrealistic to expect someone to sit there logging tunes as they're played. Also, the way we learn music is a problem - we tend to pick up tunes and songs from other players, don't always know the composer (or even the title), and as the PRS won't open its database to non-members it's difficult to check what's copyright and what isn't.

I'm afraid I'm left with the feeling that PRS is demanding money, sometimes with menaces, just to allow us to perform music, even though they don't have jurisdiction over some of it and for the rest they are probably not passing on the royalties to the actual composers due to an inefficient distribution system.