Whistle while you work?

[Bun]

Interesting point - what if you do whistle a song? Is there a royalty due?

What about humming?

Well, if your humming one of your own tunes the PRS will collect royalties for you......just make sure your not humming in front of collegues at work or you'll have to pay a performance cost

[Rich-MLandS]

Well I kind of sing or hum, depends really. My collegues do get scared!

[brian.mc]

if its played into a shop or alike then just play the radio as the rights is paid by the radio.

This is no longer the case. If you play copyright music publicly, eg in a shop, you have to have a licence from Performing Rights Society, even if its only in the staffroom!

Music on hold costs from £91 per annum
Background Music in a retail shop from £224 for 200sq metre retail area.
If you only have a portable radio it costs £56.

They have inspectors who go around checking, and they have legal rights to ask to see your licence if they hear music playing. They have quite far reaching powers - almost on the same level as govenrment or local authority inspectors, and you can actually be fined for playing music without a licence!

For more information
http://www.mcps.co.uk/redirect.asp?t...&subjectId=118

[leehack]

Its quite sometime since i dealt with them admittedly, however the call centre i setup with 600 incoming lines and 6,000 calls a day only had to pay £79 for their hold music!

Im only talking about 5-6 years ago, the PRS have some high inflation going on. Its easy to get them back anyway, just download a few free tracks each year off the internet and it balances the books lol.

[parklifeclothes]

Prs

It seems PRS are not hanging around, we got our letter about a fortnight ago and rang and paid for the licence a week later, got a phone call from them yesterday asking if I played music in the store. Told them we had just paid and now have the licence and they then checked that we were covered. We were told we should now display the PRS sticker in the window.
They're not taking any prisoners!

Darron

[parklifeclothes]

And now PPL

Anybody else getting calls from PPL, it would seem we now require not only a PRS licence but also a PPL licence to have music in the workplace. Thats another £116+

Soon you won't be able to hum a tune without someone chasing for royalties

[pnagames]

OMG

i never knew this

right, music has been banned in the warehouse. anyone wishes to listen music can bring their own ipod

FFS what else...

[parklifeclothes]

OMG, FFS what else...

A tax on excessive use of acronyms, You, Lee & Tracey would be broke

Had a visit from one of their reps so can't deny we have music playing and was handed application form that you basicly have to incriminate yourself by declaring how long ago you started using music (don't know if they calculate back payments too). All seems very legit, just not well publicised.

[Duncan Rounding]

And they wonder why there is so much piracy. The music heard in the workplace could actually encourage listeners to buy.

[parklifeclothes]

Your acronym usage invoices are ready.

PnaGames posted 720 times using just one acronym per post at 0.06 (Low acronym user tariff) per acronym usage equals £43.12

TraceyHand posted 6993 using an avergae of 3 acronyms per post at £0.04 per acronym usgae equals £839.16

LeeHack posted 11689 times using an average of 5 acronyms per post at £0.03 (High acronym user tariff) per acronym usuage equals £1753.35

Please make all payments within the next 48 hours to:

Rip Off Britain
Popstar House
Mansion Street
Mayfair
London
N0T FA1R

[leehack]

I've got a thesaurus in my sig, leave me out of it.

[Darren B]

Another thing that irritates me about the UK. I have no problem in paying someone for work done but this is typical of legislation did you know in 2007 the PRS made £134m from Public Performance Licences, keeping 6-12% before passing the royalty fee on to the artist.

if i played music in my showroom here it would costs me £136.70 if i play music in the warehouse to 5 staff it would cost £791.28

If the showroom can hear the radio then i need to have both licenses so for a bit of music at work it would cost
£1067.18 including VAT

I am happy to pay this once the PRS tell me how they are going to pass this money onto the artist and how exactly they are going to split it between musician and song writer and then deciding how this is then seperated out to small guy and the big international groups.

Funny i have a feeling that the guy who would probably benefit from it in reallity probably sees very little or nothing of this money.

[Sean Williams]

I just told them I'm far too busy to listen to music and if I did it would be off CD, for which I'd already paid my royalties, and to bu**er off.
After three attempts on their part, it worked and they listed me as something-or-another and no more hassle.
Just for the moment I'm sure ...

Clarifacatory Edit: forgot to mention - Joe Public have no access here - it's just playing on the PC.

[Duncan Rounding]

Can you play your own CD in the office then without paying for a public license?
I thought it covered all public broadcasting not just radio.

[Kirk]

We don't have this in the US yet, but I'm sure its coming.

This reminds me of the rumor I heard a few years ago: If you celebrate a birthday in a restaurant, they bring you a small birthday cake and the wait staff sing a kitschy little birthday tune to you. The rumor was Michael Jackson had bought the rights to the song "Happy Birthday" and all the restaurants made up their own songs to keep from paying royalties.