Business in Hungerford - Company billed for listening to radio

Company billed for listening to radio

Staff at Thermatek, (a manufacturing company) in Station Road, Hungerford, were stunned to get a telephone call from the Performing Rights Society (PRS) asking for £130 a year. The organisation in charge of protecting copyright and paying artists’ royalties called and asked if they listened to music in the commercial premises.

Many companies have never heard about the £130 fee which would pay for a licence to play the radio in a public place or workplace.

By law under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, if you play copyright music in your business or organisation, you must first acquire permission from every writer or composer whose music you intend to play. To make things easy, the PRS, set up by songwriters, composers and music publishers, manage these rights on their behalf.

Almost all the songs you will hear on the radio, TV, CDs, online, etc, are covered by a PRS Music Licence, including songs from around the world. PRS has agreements with overseas organisations where royalties are collected on each other’s behalf. Therefore, no matter what country the music played on your premises stems from, a PRS Music Licence will cover you.

The cost of a PRS Music Licence can depend on various factors:

• The type of the premises.
• The size of the premises.
• The nature and extent to which music is used.

Until the matter is resolved, the employees at Thermatek are not listening to the radio.

www.businessinberkshire.co.uk

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