You will have to pay for on hold music. The regiment band will have to pay an annual fee to play in public. Even the majorettes have a prescribed annual fee.

Are they going to be going after the taxi drivers who play music in their cabs that passengers can hear? How about telephone systems that play music while you’re on hold? (They should pay an annoyance tax).

“The showing or playing in public of a broadcast or cable programme to an
audience who have not paid for admission to the place where the broadcast or programme
is to be seen or heard does not infringe any copyright in—
the broadcast or cable programme; or
any sound recording or film included in it.”

So playing a radio or tv or internet music service in an establishment does not seem to require a license unless you are specifically charging for the broadcast or if the fee you are charging is purposely higher because of the broadcast.

I wonder if the Chamber of Commerce has made this clear to their members?

The PRS is completely legitimate and it’s only because Bermuda has escaped the attention of artists that this has taken so long.

And no establishment is paying royalties…that’s just a wrong use of that word.

Bermuda has for a very long time escaped the attention of those that own copyrighted materials and that is definitely changing here – we will become inline with most of our sophisticated global peers.

Most establishments will basically wind up paying royalties twice.

Should one of these establishments wish to challenge the validity of this what recourse to they have? PRS is a UK entity. Nobody in Bermuda has the authority to investigate them. Furthermore it would be more expensive to launch an investigation in the UK than it would be to pay the fees.

PRS offer nothing and demand a fee for it backed by a threat of legal action. There’s a word for that. Several, in fact.

Maybe just play Bermudian written and published music then? Surely Bermudians wouldn’t want to be paid either?

https://www.prsformusic.com/aboutus/FAQs/prsformusicfaqs/Pages/default.aspx

How do they demonstrate that the artists whose music was played were paid correctly? How they demonstrate that artist who’s music was not played were not paid? The answer is that they don’t. PRS take their fees regardless of whether the music played was by their members. Furthermore PRS are a foreign entity and can’t be regulated here. Authorties will have no jursdiction or power to investigate complaints so if PRS are not corrupt now the arrangements encourage corruption.

What about the artists that PRS does not represent? Will they be able to form their own society and demand fees on the off chance that their members’ music might be played within earshot?

It is incredible that this was allowed and that the Chamber of Commerce helped. I hope all of Hamilton goes quiet.

The first point to note is that we don’t know the details of every play of every work on every stereo in every premises and every broadcaster we licence. Whilst we aim to make our royalty payments as accurate as possible, to collect and process information for each individual play of every work across the UK would, in some cases, cost more than we can actually collect in royalty revenues for those plays.”

This is a slippery slope being forced down. They have no way to monitor what is played. For businesses that use Satelite, they are already paying the service for the licensing of music. Are the Bermudian artists mentioned on their site seeing payment? What about international artists? Money grab. Don’t like it.