This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Labels & Publishers
PRS reaches out to dance community
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 12 February 2013
Publishing sector collecting society PRS For Music has launched a new initiative aimed at the dance music community after research showed that dance music producers and composers are often less connected to the rights body, meaning royalties they are due can’t be paid out.
The society found that while 15% of Radio 1 output in 2011 was ‘electronic music’, nearly half of the publishing royalties paid by the BBC for that output couldn’t be distributed to the rightful copyright owner, either because incomplete information had been provided when the track was registered with the society, or because the composer or rights owner simply hadn’t joined PRS.
Dance acts may also be losing out from live events, with dance festivals often providing incomplete set lists, meaning that creators and rights owners aren’t earning the royalties they are due, whether they are playing out their own tunes or those of their counterparts.
The new initiative, called Amplify, aims to better inform performers and managers in the dance music sector about the need to register with and report to PRS, as well as working with music tech companies to investigate the possibility of automating set list submission, while also reaching out to collecting societies around the world to check they too are tuned in to the recently buoyant dance side of the industry.
The launch of Amplify coincides with the recent creation of the Association For Electronic Music, and the co-founder of that organisation, Ben Turner, welcomed the new PRS initiative yesterday, telling CMU: “Issues around the payment of producers and artists have been a major factor in our thinking of the need for AFEM to exist, and we’ve had some valuable dialogue with PRS For Music on many issues around the genre. We welcome this initiative as a major part of a collective push from the electronic world to educate the genre and to get people paid and recognised for their work. We look forward to further discussions and building a strategy with those involved in the Amplify initiative”.
Meanwhile Mark Lawrence, Director Of Membership & Rights at PRS For Music added: “I was converted to dance music in 1989 when I walked into the Zap Club in Brighton and was hit by the sound of ‘Voodoo Ray’ by A Guy called Gerald. This is a vital community, making a significant contribution to all creative industries. Its sound features heavily in television, advertising and film, alongside a long established but fast growing live sector. It is essential electronic music writers, producers and publishers are properly supported by joining PRS For Music, registering their songs and earning from their music”.
