The Performing Right Society (PRS) in the UK is literally looking and listening, anywhere and everywhere it can to find fresh new sources of license fees for “public performance” of music. It’s no secret that typical business premises like grocery stores, restaurants, clothing outlets and everything else must pay a yearly fee if they have the radio playing for their staff and customers.
Fresh from hunting down new businesses in towns and cities, the PRS is expanding to anywhere it can that technically is required to get a license. Rosemary Greenway is a perfect example. For over 20 years, she has played classical music for the animals at her stables because she believes it helps to keep them calm.
One day she received a telephone call from the Performing Right Society informing her that she must pay a £99 annual fee, as playing Classic FM at the stables where there are more than two on staff apparently constitutes a “performance”, regardless of the fact that the staff don’t really care for, or listen to the music at all.
Rosemary claims from observation that the music soothes the animals, making for better working conditions for all. The stables are also located next to the RAF Lyneham air base, so the music helps to drown out the excess noise. “You would have thought that playing music to your own horses was allowable but apparently not,” she said. “Especially on windy days I try to play it - it gives them a nice quiet atmosphere, you can only exercise one horse at a time so it helps the others to stay calm.”
Result for: classical music
Sony Music Entertainment Japan has announced the launch of a new disc standard today, Blu-spec, in which it hopes to use blue lasers to “cut CDs more accurately than would be possible with red lasers.”
The company will also use polymer plastic for the actual discs and the combination will improve the quality of audio CDs while keeping compatibility with current CD players. Incompatibility has been the main weakness for Super Audio CDs and other audio standards.
The first Blu-spec discs will hit Japan on Christmas and will be mainly classical music discs as well as Jazz. Among the 60 titles available at launch will be Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.
The discs will all be Sony but they are hoping to “foster cross-label support” from the other Big 4 labels.
