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.'"

Comments

The horses are upset by this

[Norsefire]

As is evident by their long faces.

Re:The horses are upset by this

[Reason58]

The one on the left has complained so much about this that it is a little horse.

Easy solution!

[martin-boundary]

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).

Re:Easy solution!

[Z80xxc!]

She's still playing the same music, she's just playing it backwards. Of course, that means the PRS has to be payed for the music backwards — and give her money.

Re:Easy solution! - one big problem

[Brett Buck]

They'll all be depressed when they think Paul is dead!

The real solution

[Greymoon]

Send £99 worth of horse shit to the PRS. Tit-for-tat.

They need to pay.

[Ken Broadfoot]

I, for one, think the horses should pony up and pay. Musicians need the cash.

Re:They need to pay.

[g2devi]

Sorry, I didn't want to stirrup any trouble.

While I agree Musicians need a stable income, should animals be saddled with such debt? What should our mane priority be as a society? Answering that question, is our first hurdle.

Easy solution.

[feepness]

Horse headphones.

OK

[TRRosen]

Lets just all agree to pretend that Britain doesn't exist.

Re:Wilts isn't a country

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Solution

[PHPfanboy]

It might not be that big, but compared to the falling CD market, it's stable

Re:Solution

[ciderVisor]

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.

Re:lolwut

[daveime]

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.