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PRS Demands License Fee To Play Music To Horses
An anonymous reader writes "A woman in Bushton, Wilts, has been told by the Performing Rights Society (PRS for Music) that she needs to pay an annual fee in order to play classical music from the radio to the horses in her stable, something that she has been doing for the past 20 years.
The PRS claims that it's not about the horses — rather, it's about her staff of over two people, which puts Mrs. Greenway in the same category as shops, bars and cafes.
'The staff are not bothered whether they have the radio on or not, in fact they don't particularly like my music and turn if off when I'm not around,' said Mrs. Greenway, 62. 'Especially on windy days I try to play it — it gives [the horses] a nice quiet atmosphere, you can only exercise one horse at a time so it helps the others to stay calm. We are right next to the RAF Lyneham air base so it dulls the noise from the aircraft as well.'"
As is evident by their long faces.
She should tape a few hours of music from the radio, then play it backwards to the horses. That way, she's not playing any actual RIAA music to anybody, (and the horses probably won't understand the subliminal messages anyway).
They'll all be depressed when they think Paul is dead!
Send £99 worth of horse shit to the PRS. Tit-for-tat.
I, for one, think the horses should pony up and pay. Musicians need the cash.
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Horse headphones.
Not if you play them his last four albums.
Blank until
Not if you play them his last four albums.
Right - then they will be sure.
Lets just all agree to pretend that Britain doesn't exist.
Hello, I'm the original submitter. Sorry I didn't think of adding UK after Wilts. I thought people would figure out from the insanity of the story that these were the British we were talking about.
It might not be that big, but compared to the falling CD market, it's stable
29 mpg. YMMV.
so who ratted her out?
the PONYS?!??!?!
How big could the stable music market possibly be?
You'd be surprised. It's the next biggest market after house music and garage music.
Squirrel!
Playing a radio in these circumstances is a public performance under British law and she does need a license.
She could just tell them that her staff are all deaf, and thus cannot hear the music. However, she would happily pay the public performance license if they can supply a sign-language version of their music.
This assumes that the public performance license does not apply if the audience cannot hear it. But I'm not entirely sure this assumption is correct, alas.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
A sign language version would be an obvious "format shifting" violation, and then she'd have to pay even more money to the man, or risk some nonsensical IP law being applicable.