The Performing Right Society

www.prs.co.uk

The PRS collects and distributes licence fees for the public performance and broadcast of musical works.

PRS works for composers, lyricists and music publishers, who are its members, to license the public performance and broadcast of copyright works, collect the licence fees, assemble information about the use of that music, and then distribute the royalties.

What is PRS?

Established in 1914, the Performing Right Society (PRS) is a non-profit making membership organisation of composers, songwriters, authors and publishers of music of all styles - including classical, pop, jazz and music for films, adverts and TV. The essential function of PRS is to collect and distribute music royalties on behalf of its members.

What does PRS do?

PRS is known as a ‘collecting society’ because its primary role is collecting royalties from music users in the UK who every day publicly perform, broadcast and include music in cable production services. PRS also collects royalties from around the world for its members through reciprocal agreements with collecting societies overseas.

PRS collects the royalties by issuing a licence to the music user (usually charged on an annual basis). In order to then make royalty payments to its members, PRS needs to know what music is being played. Major users, such as the BBC and large concert venues, give PRS detailed reports of the music they play. For many other venues including commercial discos, clubs and pubs, PRS sends researchers to obtain  first hand information.

With an estimated 8 billion public performances in the UK every year it is not possible to track every one. To pay out these royalties, statistical methods are used based on actual performance information.

PRS is a non-profit making organisation. Having recovered its running costs it pays all the remaining money collected to the members identified, both UK and overseas. The MCPS-PRS Alliance manages common activities, services both societies and is jointly owned by them.

What does PRS do?

MCPS and PRS are, and remain, separate societies in terms of income, constitution, membership and guardianship of different rights. To make the best use of their individual strengths, they are now working as an operational alliance - The MCPS-PRS Alliance.