PRS

Also in work, we've had the misfortune to receive a couple of phone calls from the above organisation - the Performing Rights Society.

The PRS is a limited company set up to collect musicians' royalties from various sources. One way in which they're becoming very litigious is in the workplace. The PRS say that an employer must have a basic £44 "licence" to broadcast their members music via a radio, for example. Even talk-based radio such as Radio Five Live isn't immune to the PRS and their tactics. The PRS claim that the incidental music and jingles all fall under their juristrisction because it's likely the composers of the material are signed up to....yep, you guessed it, the PRS.

The PRS have always been around, but in recent times - with the increase in illegal downloading of music - they've needed to find another way to justify their existence to their members. So, taking an easy option, they've began chasing and bullying small firms (like ours) for payment - regardless of whether we have a radio in work or not.

They rang us up twice. The second time, Ron pretty much told them to go away.

Even so, it's created a weird feeling. Why do I feel like I'm being bullied by these parasites? What right have they to interfere with my relatively-pleasant day? I don't have the radio on to listen to particular music, because I have no idea what Radio City's gonna play next? The PRS claim over 75,000 artists and musicians are signed up to their organisation. I would like a list of who's on it or not, so when a song by one of their members comes on the radio, I can turn it off. And so on, etc......

This is a scam. And if they bother me again, I'll be straight on to Liverpool Trading Standards.

Be careful who you listen to......