Middleton workshop owner told to pay to play radio

Mr Smith was stunned to receive a phone call from the Performing Rights Society to say he was breaking the law.

The society enforces the collection of a licence fee under a 1988 copyright law for premises where music is broadcast.

Mr Smith's ten employees at Duke Motors listen to a radio in both its two workshops while they repair customers' cars.

The fee, Mr Smith says he was told, would be 11.3p per employee per radio for every four hours of listening at the Yapton Road premises.

"It turns out that, as any member of the public walking by may hear the radio, it counts as a broadcast.

"I've never heard such poppycock in all my life," he said. "All radio stations pay copyright to play music. It seems the society want their cake and eat it.

"I told them I would rather bin my workshop radios than pay them a fee as I thought it was totally out of order."

The shock phone call was due to be followed by a formal letter from the society setting out its position. This had yet to arrive towards the end of the week.

Mr Smith said workplace radios had been a fact of life in the motor repair industry since he started work some 40 years ago.

"I can understand somewhere like a pub having to pay a licence because the music is part of their business entertaining customers. But that's not the case here."

He warned the society its hardline approach would damage the music business which it was seeking to protect. "There's no way we can have anything other than a radio for the guys to listen to music.

"They can't have Walkmans or anything similar in the ears because this is a potentially hazardous environment. They could be walking along listening to the music and not hear someone else reverse a car. So, if we don't have a radio on, we won't be listening to music.

"Businesses like mine will just ban the likes of radios and CDs which will lead to less exposure of artists' material in the workplace and then fewer people buying their products. It seems to me the PRS have undoubtedly lost a lot of revenue through illegal internet downloading. They are trying now to recoup that loss by hammering small businesses, who cannot gain in any way by playing music."

He added that PRS licences formed a lively debate on small business websites.

Audrey Whitney, the chairman of the Arun and District branch of the FSB, said many small businesses were unaware of the copyright act which covered the broadcasting of music.

"The federation is working with the Performing Rights Society to highlight this piece of legislation. However, the federation opposes over-zealous enforcement by the PRS including backdating of tariffs," she stated.

A PRS spokeswoman said a licence for Dukes Motors to continue playing radios would be 83. Across the UK, 350,000 businesses had a licence.

'If copyright music is played in public '“ in shops, restaurants, workplaces or any other business '“ clearance is needed to do so from the owners of that music,' she explained.

'PRS is a not-for-profit organisation that licenses the public performance of music on behalf of its 50,000 composer, songwriter and music publisher members and pays royalties to them each time a piece of music is played in public. Music royalties create a future for music by supporting creators while they continue to write.'

Last year's Rox music and arts festival on Bognor Regis seafront was hit by a demand from the PRS for several hundred pounds for a licence. Negotiations produced a final fee of less than 100.