Performing rights and copyright

In this recording of our webinar (original event 8 March 2024), we talked about the options available to members for sourcing sheet music.

In the spring edition of Highnotes, we explore the wealth of data contributed by our members in the Big Survey 2022, revealing insights about the leisure-time music community. We provide updates on our inclusion project, INCLUDE, and share what the selected groups will get up to over the new year. We also interview conductor Bradley Wilson, who shares his experience of curating a concert experience for a younger audience and the valuable lessons learnt along the way. 

In this webinar expert guest speakers from PRS for Music explain the latest changes to its live classical tariff. Original webinar took place on Monday 12 June 2023.

PRS for Music recently announced the details of changes to its live classical licence, which come into effect for events held from 1 September. As part of the announced changes, a 50% discount is newly available to amateur groups, making it easier for communities across the UK to host events and concerts.

In this recording of our webinar, guest speakers discussed how the programming of living music creators can influence and diversify the repertoire of the future.

This event had a double focus: helping you understand more about the benefits and challenges of commissioning a music creator, and also exploring who you should commission and how to broaden your search and find the right music creator for your group.

We welcomed guest speakers:

The role of the librarian is important for the smooth running of your group and doing it well can make a big difference.  You need systems to keep track of all the music whilst being flexible enough to cope with unexpected schedule changes, and the more disorganised members of your group who may forget or lose their music.  

The main responsibilities and challenges are: 

Sourcing music is vital to the efficient running of a music group. It normally falls to the librarian to do this and can involving obtaining music from a variety of sources.

In this resource, we’ll look at how and where you can find the music you need, and the things you need to think about when dealing with publishers and music libraries. 

Obtaining music from publishers is vital for leisure-time music groups. Whilst it can be a big and sometimes difficult task, it doesn’t have to be. We have worked with various publishers and the Music Publishers Association (MPA) on this guidance to ensure our groups can access the music they want and receive the best possible service in doing so.

If you’re sharing a recording online of your group performing music which is in copyright, then you need to ensure that the website or platform you are using has the correct licence(s) to allow you to do so.

YouTube does have licenses and permissions in place for this, which usually means that you do not have to obtain any other licenses from PRS to be able to share your recordings of copyrighted music on YouTube. Check our guidance on licensing live music online to find out how you can determine whether the correct licenses are in place.

When your group decides to perform a piece of music, there will be copyright laws, permissions and licences to be aware of. Part 6 of our guidance looks at how this applies to live or ‘as live’ online performances. For more information on what copyright is, see Part one: What is Copyright?