Music Licence for Awards Show

[Peter Rush]

So I'm thinking of accepting a booking for an awards ceremony for a large national UK charity but they will be using a lot of copyrighted music and they want to post online the finished edit - anyone have any idea of the licence I would need for this?

[Paul R Johnson]

While the PRS tariffs and PPL tariffs are on-line, I would 100% phone them up and talk to them. They're going to be talking to them for playing the music to the audience live, and may be able to offer a package including the download rights. It need not be that expensive - if they will make less than 12 grand from downloading/streaming it's £130ish for a year. You'd have to read the licence terms and conditions to make sure it applies to this event. If it doesn't cover it, there is a next step up licence but that is then over two grand!

PPL do have a license that covers streaming - but I can't quite see how it fits your service - so again, you need to talk to them. Be careful though, because you must not accept the charities assurance that they have dealt with it. If it goes wrong, they come after you first!

[Peter Rush]

Cheers Paul

[John Nantz]

Peter - There is a concern that I have with regard to you talking to the licensing people directly about the gig because the licensing people would then know about it (if they didn’t already).

Years ago I contacted ASCAP (a licensing outfit in the USA that was in San Francisco) about playing demo music in a stereo equipment store - just for demoing turntables, amps, speakers, and the like. They wanted to sign us up and keep track of everything and we were hounded for several years afterward. Okay, and while your situation may be different, we don’t know how much the charity has told the licensing outfit about their gig, or if they did, and if it what they told them was correct.

If it were me, I would prefer that the charity representative talk to the licensing outfit so you could hear (and maybe record) what is discussed. This way both you and the charity would know exactly, or as exactly as possible, what is allowed and all the ins and outs. What one doesn’t want is a “he said, she said” situation that could become more work than what the job was.

Without knowing all the details this is the approach I would take, and of course, get it in writing. “If it isn’t written, it isn’t said.”

[Paul R Johnson]

Charities rarely have skilled business people. If a charity comes to me and asks for something, then I will sort the licenses, because it is me who they go after - the person who used it! Our licensing organisations often get slammed for their bad attitude, but I have always found them very professional. One event I was doing was organised by a school consortium, and the teacher in charge had been told that everything must be 100% legal. She asked me to get the copyright cleared. The copyright agency were confused - as usually they'd deal with me, and not the person organising the entire event. As it was taking place in a performance venue, many of the licensing decisions would also impact on the venue for licensing too. In the end, they did a one-off special license to cover everything.

We're quite lucky here, our organisations have special licenses for limited scope events - so somebody who wants to sell small amounts of product, can have a simplified off the shelf package. I don't think this happens in the US.