Charities in protest over background music royalties
Dec 30 2009 by Paul Dale, Birmingham Mail
CHARITIES in the West Midlands are set to be clobbered by a £1.5 million bill following approval of a new government licensing system for playing recorded music.
The changes mean that charities running shops, such as Cancer Research and Help the Aged, will have to pay up to £1,800 a year in royalties if they play background music to customers.
Voluntary groups organising tea dances, fetes, fund-raising discos and even jumble sales will also have to buy an annual licence if they intend to play recorded music that is still in copyright.
Charities already pay fees to the Performing Rights Society (PRS), which represents music writers, composers and publishers.
Under the new system they would pay a far larger fee to be split between the PRS and Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL), the organisation representing the interests of music producers and performers.
A spokesman for PPL said that charities would be charged per shop, rather than paying a one-off fee to play music in all their shops.
He said the cost per charity shop had not been decided, but the amount was likely to be less than £100 a year.
However, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) estimates that more than 12,000 charities in the West Midlands will end up paying £1.5 million a year under the new system.
The Government, which intends to introduce the changes in April, argues that they are needed to bring Britain into line with European law. But charities have reacted with horror. Liz Atkins, head of public policy at NCVO, said: “Many charities in the West Midlands run on shoestring budgets and rely on small fundraising events to help them survive. This is a shameful way to treat voluntary organisations that help some of the most disadvantaged people in our society.”
The rule change will affect people in a wide range of organisations, including volunteers sorting clothes in the back of charity shops while listening to music.
David Moir, head of policy and public affairs at the Association of Charity Shops, said: “This proposal is outrageous. It will damage charity shops and their fundraising ability.”
Almost 100 MPs have signed a Parliamentary motion calling on the Government to scrap the proposed changes.
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