In response to an ongoing court action concerning the licensing of live performance rights, the Performing Right Society (PRS) has attempted to justify the existence of a preferential scheme for large-scale live events (the Major Live Concerts Service, or MLCS) by appearing to claim that the majority of managers of writer-performers who perform at smaller venues, and the majority of those smaller venues are inefficient and unprofessional.

The claims were made in a PRS defence document filed on 12th September, after a group of leading UK songwriters and composers, including Robert Fripp (from King Crimson amongst others), and Jim and William Reid (from The Jesus And Mary Chain), initiated a court action in a bid to overhaul the implementation of PRS procedures and policies which they believe are prejudicial to their interests and to those of other songwriters.

They have been joined in this action by PACE Rights Management, the global leaders and experts on direct licensing Live Public Performance Rights

One of the matters in dispute is the MLCS.

In apparent conflict with PRS’s remit as a collective rights management organisation to treat all members equally, the MLCS offers preferential conditions to writer-performers who headline live shows in 5,000+ capacity venues.

According to PRS’s own figures, it means writer-performers who perform live shows in arenas and stadiums will pay an effective average administration fee of 0.2%, while the wider PRS Membership pays 23% - proportionately, 115 times more.

In effect, it seems, the most successful writers are being subsidised by the rest of the PRS Members.

Compounding these disparities, the Claimants have also learned that PRS has decided to appropriate significant sums of live black box income into MLCS distributions.

In its own document PRS states:
"In 2019 the total PRS unclaimed pot that was used for analogies was £2.7M of which £1.45M was allocated to MLCS"

This is despite the high likelihood that the license fees were not generated from large-scale live events. At a time when grassroots live music is in crisis, it seems incredible that PRS would take this decision to further disadvantage smaller writers.

As a result of these decisions taken by PRS without consultation with the Membership, and as detailed in the court action, the vast majority of PRS Members have effectively been overcharged administration fees on their live and international income since the inception of the MLCS (and its predecessors in kind), nearly 30 years ago.

Responding to these claims, PRS has attempted to justify its discriminatory two-tier licensing system by claiming that: "major live concert[s]...tend to be administered efficiently by professional right holders’ managers and venues with whom PRS has strong working relationships"

We are genuinely puzzled by this response, which appears to infer that those involved in smaller-scale live events are unprofessional and inefficient - otherwise, they too would benefit from vastly reduced administration fees.

We would welcome the reactions of organisations such as the Music Managers Forum and the Music Venue Trust to these claims, as well as businesses such as Academy Music Group, the Electric Group, Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom, the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds and Cambridge Junction.

Commenting on PRS’s response, the Claimants said:
"The MLCS is a discriminatory two-tier service. A reverse Robin Hood. It results in the most successful arena and stadium-level writer-performers being subsidised by the rest of the PRS Membership.

"That PRS can apparently try to justify such rank unfairness by claiming large-scale live events are run more efficiently or professionally than smaller shows is as insulting as it is absurd and self-serving.

"The UK has many brilliant music venues under 5,000 capacity. They are the lifeblood of our music culture. Equally, there are countless music managers who efficiently and professionally manage the
rights of PRS writers whose works are performed in those smaller venues. For PRS to suggest those writers should be disadvantaged and discriminated against merely because they are smaller, is just
wrong."

The Claimants continue to find it disappointing that PRS seems unwilling or unable to constructively engage with much needed reforms to empower and benefit writers and publishers.

PRS seems determined to continue attempting to defend the indefensible by spending yet more of the Members’ money on legal costs supporting policies that make Members less money.