Public Entertainment Licences

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 04:52 AM

Thanks Pavane, i think I get your point.

When the Law was changed endless threads suggested the collapse of Folk Clubs in the uk. Perhaps this was because Folk Clubs tended to use small rooms in pubs that didn't put on much entertainment at all and so would not need any kind of special license.

My question is have we in general survived PELs and if so is that because of compliance on the part of most pubs or smaller Folk Clubs in smaller rooms just ignoring the problem and carrying on with out PELs?

Do local authorities come looking or is their tacit agreement to let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak?

L in C
No names no pack drill?

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: pavane
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 04:12 AM

I don't think it matters for a PEL what kind of music it is. It is a (council) licence allowing music (or other entertainments) be performed in public.

If the music is in copyright then you also need a PRS licence, which is supposed to pay copyright holders their fees for performance. Two completely separate things.

(And another completely separate party is the MCPS, which deals with fees for recording copyright material. Look for the MCPS logo on CDs)

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:31 AM

PELs and folk music anybody?

L in C

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:18 AM

Yes, Maine Dog, I agree with your second point. It was why I put what I did. Regrettably there are some lawyers that I neither believe or trust.

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: MaineDog
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 06:49 PM

RB,
If you want us to believe you, tell us you are a lawyer.
If you want us to trust you, tell us you are not a lawyer.
MD

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 06:42 PM

I wish the PRS would badger the idiots who pump copyright tunes into my ears whenever I am asked to hold in a telephone call, and the providers of elevator music.

Unless of course it's decent folk music.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 01:32 PM

PS - it is however right that the PRS administers rights not only in musical works but also in litereary and dramatic works - it is in their memorandum and articles.

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 01:22 PM

I don't think I'd go along with all of that, Liz. PRS only enforces rights in its members' works - but unscripted live shows in any event have no copyright scripts

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 10:31 AM

Richard & Liz,
               I am much indebted to you for your succinct and wide ranging explanations. I have, naively, believed all the while that having paid the annual licence fee I, and everyone else was entitled to enjoy the airwaves, the BBC having paid all performers for their contributions. This is obviously not the case and it does now give me a different view of what Public Braodcasting Service is about. I go with tears in my eyes.

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 10:04 AM

People tend to use 'prosecuted' when they mean 'enforced'... as an employee of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, we are supposed to use the word 'enforced'. Trouble is, most people don't understand what it means and 'prosecuted' has that ring of heavy handed authority about it that makes the average person sit up and pay.

If a radio programme is being broadcast in a public place of business then it requires a license. As your acquaintance was using it in his business premises, then the officers are within their rights to ask him to cease and desist, and take into account any previous infractions of performing rights laws. It does not matter what station, what format or what media - if it can be heard by a member of the public, it is 'broadcast' and subject to those laws.

Performing Rights do not cover just music - someone had to write those scripts, actors had to record those plays and someone had to read that news report. They all count as a 'performance'.

LTS

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 09:52 AM

The case law supports (or perhaps, "tends to support") the PRS about wireless at work.

The removal of the wireless ends any infringment of copyright by that route.

It does not undo any past infringments.

I cannot envisage any court being likely to accept that it was only talk shows that were on. It would be so unusual.

I am surprised that the word "prosecuted" was used. Normally PRS enforcement for copyright infringment is civil not criminal and one can only be "prosecuted" for a criminal offence. The provisions in the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 ("CDPA") about criminal infringment are fairly hard to read - but are not normally invoked save against knowing pirates.

Perhaps he indicated an intention to assist the expedited departure of the PRS people?

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 09:40 AM

On a not dis-similar vein, the following was told to me by a friend who runs some businesses, one being a workshop where he and three employees work. He has been badgered by mail for some time about applying for a licence to allow his employees to listen to the radio while working and has not responded. He was visited the other day by persons behind the correspondence pointing out he was committing an offence having his radio on in the workshop where anyone in earshot could hear it, employee or visiting customer. He immediately took the radio, cut the plug from the lead, binned the pair of them and, in his own inimitable fashion, requested they leave his premises saying his employees would be allowed to listen on their own personal head sets or car radios. Such was his strongly stated objection to their prescence and his invitation to leave that he was advised "If he carried on like that he could be prosecuted".

    What could he be done for? Verbally abusing a "Jobsworth"?
    If it is about performing rights, could he claim exemption by having only news programmes or Radio 4 talks and plays on?
Have not the BBC already paid the artists fees?

Can somebody tell me what is going on in this country?

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Rog Peek
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 11:46 AM

Yes, that response made me chuckle too

Rog

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 06:44 AM

Nice one Richard, I needed a chuckle

Les

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 08:12 PM

I am a lawyer. Trust me!

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 07:09 PM

OK, carriage return didn't take me to the next box!

with regard to the section 177 question it really needs a lawyer and probably some case law.

If the licensee put the cutoff into their application then I suspect that it might stand. If the local authority insisted then the question is if that licence term can be ignored of if the licensee has to use section 177 to get it corrected.

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 07:06 PM

No: it's not a condition of the licence, it's the duration.

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: The Barden of England
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 04:22 PM

What about if the Premises has a licence and has permitted live music until 7pm on a Sunday, but it is an acoustic session and the premises can hold no more tha 200 - doesn't section 177 come into effect so that the 7pm cut off has no validity?
John Barden

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 10:37 AM

The pub where my current occasional Sunday song/sessions are held is permitted live music on Sundays until 7 pm, under its licence under the Licensing Act (technically not a PEL).

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 09:56 AM

It is my belief here that the council office responsible for it`s implementation have turned a blind eye, having superficially reviewed the circumstances of our "Sing & Play" Evenings.

Subject: RE: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Rasener
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 08:58 AM

Faldingworth Live has a PEL

Subject: Public Entertainment Licences
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 08:53 AM

I don't want to go through the history of PELs. I am much more interested in current enforcement policy.

Without naming establishments, for obvious reasons, do most places with live folk music, ie clubs, singarounds, sessions or whatever, have PELs?

Do we have any sense of what local authorities are doing to places that put on live folk music? Do local authorities go looking for places who put on music with out PELs?

I guess their will be massive regional variation but does some pattern emerge?

L in C