Performing rights FAQs

Performing rights refer to the right to give a live performance of music in copyright, and the corresponding fees that are due on such performance are known as performing rights royalties. In the UK these royalties are collected by PRS for Music as the national agency responsible for distributing royalties to its member composers and copyright holders.

Our Information sheet 3: Performing rights explains this subject in detail. You need to belong to a Making Music member organisation in order to access this information sheet.

The promoter of your performance is responsible for paying a royalty fee to PRS. Eg if your choral society is organising a concert under its own name and performing one or more works in copyright, it will be liable for the payment of a royalty on that event. However, if you are engaged by another promoter to perform a copyright work, it is their responsibility.

You can use the Making Music scheme to pay any royalties due on performances of copyright music in venues which don’t have a PRS for Music licence. We ask you when you renew your membership to declare any royalties due retrospectively on performances given between 1 November and 31 October. You select the corresponding fee from a tariff sheet according to the audience size. You calculate your royalty payment accordingly, and submit a copy of the programme for each performance declared, together with a PRS for Music declaration slip giving details of the event.

Information provided on PRS for Music declaration slips helps to ensure that royalties are distributed fairly to copyright owners. Making Music member organisations using our performing rights royalty scheme should complete and return a declaration slip for each performance declared to PRS for Music.

You can download PRS for Music declaration slip here.

The tariff of royalties on the performance of music in copyright between 1 November 2010 and 31 October 2011 is available in our Information sheets section under Resources and is available to download by members of Making Music.

If the venue is licenced then you must make any royalty payment via the venue, which will pass this on to PRS for Music on your behalf. The venue will probably ask you for a copy of your concert programme, and the corresponding charge is likely to be a percentage of your ticket sale income.

NB You should not be charged a PRS for Music royalty fee if all the music you are performing is out of copyright.

If the music performed is part of a church service, presided over by a religious celebrant, it is exempt from the requirement to pay royalties. However, for concert or other performances the venue is irrelevant and you are liable for performing rights if the music performed is in copyright.

The Classical Composers Database gives a good overview of the dates of the major classical composers and will enable you to make a preliminary investigation as to whether a work might be in copyright.

Although this will give a guide based on the rule of thumb that copyright exists until 70 years after the death of the composer, it will not cover exceptional circumstances eg where a work has more than one collaborator, or where a later edition of a work acquires its own copyright status. Please see our Information Sheet 3: Performing rights for more information about copyright and performing rights (please note that you can only download this information sheet if you belong to a Making Music member organisation).

It might also be useful to check with the Music Publishers Association on +44 (0)20 7580 0126

You need to pay royalties on the performance of music in copyright regardless of whether you charge for tickets or not. In cases where you have a passing audience (eg performing in a shopping centre) you should estimate the average audience number at any one time and use this figure to calculate your royalty.