Are You Sure About Paying That Performing Rights License?

” ‘Rogue’ groups with links to the Ukrainian government collect music royalties, falsely claiming they are authorised to do so”

This quote is from a recent report by the US Trade Representative called the USTR’s annual 2013 Special 301 Special Report which outlines global findings on how countries around the world are protecting US patents, copyrights and other forms of intellectual property rights (IPR).

(the report has now been removed but may become available at a later date so search here to find it or other 301 reports for different years).

Although certainly not in the same degree of misrepresentation as the claim above, many national performing and composition rights societies state you need to pay them to play music but what they don’t ever tell you, and what they really should state is that you need to pay them for using music that they represent.

So music and musicians that they don’t have any legal representation for (so the musicians / copyright owners haven’t signed a contract with them to collect music royalties on their behalf) does not need any of their expensive licenses to be paid.

Of course in this case you need to deal with the musician directly or seek better deals with royalty free libraries like us here at Melody Pods.