PRS FOR MUSIC AND THE GRASSROOTS SECTOR: Fix You

The final part of a four-part series lifting the curtain on the problems with song-writing royalties in the grassroots sector

This is the fourth and final part of a series on PRS for Music and the grassroots music sector. Part one explained what PRS is and where its model breaks down. Part two quantified the money that is not reaching the songwriters it was collected for; somewhere between 4.5 and 6.5 million pounds per year depending on how generously you treat the methodology. Part three explained the mechanism; the 100% repertoire assumption, the two-tier tariff structure, the overcharging that stayed invisible until MVT built the tools to see it, and the 2017 agreement in which PRS accepted the problem existed and then did nothing to fix it.

You don’t have to read all those parts to start with this one, as this piece is about solutions. Not aspirational ones; practical, specific, deliverable ones. Every problem described in this series is resolvable. None of them require new legislation, revolutionary technology, or the invention of mechanisms that do not already exist elsewhere. They require decisions, by people with the power to make them, that have simply not yet been made. That needs to change, and it needs to change urgently; not just for the 800-odd venues that make up the grassroots network, but also for every songwriter whose work has ever performed in one of them, whether they choose to be PRS members or not, and for every emerging artist whose career begins on a small stage. The long-term health of the whole industry depends on a pipeline existing and functioning. So how do we fix the broken songwriter royalty collection system in the grassroots?

Let’s start with what PRS already agreed. The most direct path to reform does not require PRS to accept new arguments. It requires PRS to honour an old commitment. In 2017, PRS formally accepted that its licensing model for grassroots venues was built on a false assumption and formally committed to developing a new approach. Nine years on, that commitment remains undelivered.

The first and most immediate reform ask is therefore simply this; PRS should be required to honour the 2017 agreement. Not invited to revisit it, not encouraged to consider it in the context of a future review; required, by its regulator, to deliver what it agreed to deliver. The Intellectual Property Office is the regulatory body with oversight of Collective Management Organisations in the UK. It has the powers to intervene where a CMO is not operating in accordance with its obligations. The question of whether a nine-year failure to implement a formally agreed reform constitutes a regulatory breach is one the IPO should be actively considering if it is not already. And on this specific issue we should be completely clear:

Without delivery of the written and signed agreement that committed PRS for Music to change in the grassroots sector, Music Venue Trust, and the network of grassroots music venues in the Music Venues Alliance which it represents, are not a legal signatory to the settlement of the Tariff LP review in 2017, a fact that the Copyright Tribunal should be actively interested in. The grassroots’ acceptance of the last Tariff LP review is conditional on the delivery of the terms of the side agreement. Without that delivery, the entire basis on which PRS for Music demands that the terms and conditions of The Music Licence in the grassroots sector must be enacted and complied with has no legal basis. Settlement of Tariff LP terms is done by consent. PRS for Music have failed to deliver their side of the agreement and do not have the grassroots sector’s consent.

Beyond that, there is a clear need to reform the tariff. The 100% repertoire assumption is the root cause of every problem described in this series. It produces the overcharging. It determines the scale of the undistributable black box. It creates the conditions under which money flows upward from the grassroots to the mainstream rather than returning to the writers whose work generated it. Removing that assumption is therefore not one reform among several; it is the reform from which everything else follows.

A fair tariff for grassroots venues would be built on the actual, measurable proportion of PRS-represented music performed in those venues. MVT analysis puts that figure at between 20% and 34%. PRS for Music say its more than that, but they won’t say how much more and they haven’t provided any data nor have they acted to assess any data or create any new evidence. All anyone can rely on from PRS for Music is what can be extrapolated from their own list of undistributed collections and a broad figure of setlists collected. Let’s default again, as I have done across this series of articles, to the concept of a massive, unknown, ludicrously unlikely error in favour of PRS. Even if we were to double the amount of music they represent being used in these venues the problem would still be huge and financially significant. Let’s step through a Fantasyland mirror and imagine the scenario where PRS actually did some work to understand what music is being played in grassroots music venues and ended up with a new, accurate figure and it was double the 34% suggested by analysing the usage across 800 plus venues - which is what MVT has done without PRS support or help. The remaining problem, in that unlikely scenario, would still leave PRS for Music overcharging by 50%, so obviously PRS would need to accept any new data that established the actual rate of usage, something they have failed to do in any of the last nine years.

A tariff calibrated to real data and evidence would charge venues for what PRS is legitimately entitled to collect for. It would immediately eliminate the structural overcharging. It would reduce the volume of money entering the black box through illegitimate collection. And it would do so without reducing the royalties flowing to songwriters whose work is genuinely performed and genuinely covered by PRS licence; PRS would simply stop collecting for the work of songwriters PRS does not represent and cannot pay.

The IPO has the power to mandate this reform. Its role includes ensuring that CMO tariffs are fair, evidence-based, and proportionate. The evidence that Tariff LP and Tariff P fail on all three counts is now extensive, specific, and before the regulator. The Business and Trade Select Committee, in its ongoing inquiry into competition and market functioning in the UK live music industry, has received MVT’s formal submission setting out that evidence in full. The Committee has the opportunity to recommend that the IPO acts, and to set a timetable for it to do so.

Reforming the tariff addresses the overcharging. It does not by itself resolve the distribution problem; the question of how money that is legitimately collected gets to the writers it belongs to. That requires a parallel set of changes to how PRS handles data at the grassroots level.

The current position under Tariff P is that no usage data is collected at all from venues. PRS’s position is that small shows are too numerous and too administratively complex to document. This argument has much less force than it once did. Let’s be honest about this; it’s an absurd position in the age of digital information gathering.

Digital tools for setlist submission exist and are used by venues and artists across the sector; Setlist.fm alone contains records of hundreds of thousands of grassroots shows. The barrier to data collection at this level is not technological. It is institutional; PRS has not built or adopted the robust systems that would allow it to receive and process that data at scale. It has not even properly invested in marketing and promoting the limited and inadequate digital infrastructure it does have that would make submission simple for the songwriters and artists it is supposed to serve.

A reformed data collection framework for Tariff P would not need to achieve 100% coverage to be transformative. If the setlist submission rate rose from one in four to one in two, the proportion of money that could be correctly distributed would double. PRS should be required to develop and implement a simplified, accessible, modern submission mechanism for grassroots events, potentially in partnership with existing platforms, and to report publicly on submission rates and distribution outcomes by tariff category. Transparency of this kind does not currently exist. It should.

On that issue of transparency, PRS for Music currently publishes one piece of data publicly which can be used to track how bad the system currently is; the Pop Concerts Available for Distribution list which was published in part 2 of this series. That data itself is almost unknown to songwriters, even to PRS members, as was quickly evidenced by their astonished and appalled reaction to me publishing it. The existence of that data is at least a start, and dozens of claims against it have finally been made thanks to people engaging with this series and bringing it to the attention of artists and songwriters, but it leaves open a much bigger question: What about the Pop Concerts Unavailable for Distribution? What about the literally hundreds of thousands of sets performed at the grassroots level for which no footprint at all exists in the PRS record? What about the tens of thousands of shows containing performances of works not registered with PRS? Where’s that data? What would be on that list?

The argument that live music data collection is too complex or too administratively burdensome to be feasible was always questionable. In 2026 it is simply false, because the technology to fix this, with or without the above urgent reforms, already exists.

Audio recognition technology has reached a point where identifying music being performed in a live venue, in real time, with near-total accuracy, is not a research project. It is a commercial product. Several companies are already operating in this space, and some of them are even working with PRS right now.

Audoo, a British music technology company backed by Sir Elton John and ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus, has developed the Audio Meter; a small plug-in device that connects to a venue mixing desk via line-in cable and continuously identifies music being performed. Connecting directly to the sound source rather than relying on ambient microphones eliminates background noise entirely, making it purpose-built for live performance environments. In a real-world pilot across hundreds of spaces in Denver that concluded in early 2025, Audoo tracked nearly 100% of songs played with full metadata, including ISRC and ISWC identifiers, allowing instant matching to the correct rightsholder. The company is now live in 15 countries and has processed over 75 million songs. PRS for Music has an existing partnership with Audoo; for background music in shops, gyms and cafes. Not, as yet, mysteriously, for live music in grassroots venues.

BMAT Music Innovators, a Barcelona-based audio recognition company founded in 2005, operates a database of 72 million audio fingerprints and delivers 80 million identifications daily across broadcast, digital and venue monitoring. It achieves 95% or above coverage of ISRC codes and services more than 100 collective management organisations worldwide. PRS uses BMAT technology for broadcast monitoring. It does not use it for live grassroots performance.

Shazam, now owned by Apple, has made over 100 billion song identifications since its launch and operates with reported accuracy of above 98% in standard listening conditions. Its technology underpins numerous rights management workflows globally. It is, at this point, so embedded in everyday life that most people reading this have used it without thinking of it as rights management infrastructure. It is exactly that. Unless you’re PRS, in which case you aren’t using it to identify music in grassroots music venues.

The picture these three technologies paint together is unambiguous. The barrier to knowing what music is performed at a grassroots venue on any given night is not technological. A device the size of a pack of cards, connected to a mixing desk, can identify every song that is performed in a 200-capacity venue that is registered with PRS for Music with an accuracy rate rapidly approaching 100%, process that data in quasi real-time, and deliver it directly to a rights management organisation with full metadata attached. The cost of such a device is modest and could certainly be met by a billion pound a year turnover organisation such as PRS. The administrative burden on the venue is minimal; it plugs in and does its job without human intervention. The result is a complete, verified setlist for every show, automatically generated, requiring nothing from the artist or the venue beyond the fact of the performance itself.

This is not a future technology. It is deployable today. IMRO in Ireland has been integrating Audoo data directly into its royalty processing operations since 2024, including at live music festivals. The Irish music rights body is doing in 2026 what PRS agreed to explore in 2017 and has still not implemented. The contrast between the two positions requires no embellishment from me to appear ridiculous.

If PRS were to pay for the installation of audio recognition devices at the 800+ grassroots venues in the MVT network, the setlist submission rate would move from one in four shows to something approaching four in four. The invisible pool of three-year undistributed money that currently runs to an estimated 18 million pounds would begin to drain. The redistribution methodology that currently redirects grassroots money upward would have far less to work with. And the songwriters who performed at those venues would, for the first time, have a realistic prospect of receiving the royalties collected in their name.

This requires only one minor amendment to how this digital technology works to make it a cast-iron case for a solution to the issue of data, collection and distribution within the grassroots sector. These platforms would only need one specific technological tweak to fully service the grassroots sector; their technology would need to be set free to return the result that it does not recognise what music is being played because it is not in the database. With that simple additional reference point we could resolve any dispute about whether the performed work is or is not registered with PRS for Music, and settle once and for all, factually, what the usage rate of the PRS registered catalogue is. The only thing needed to achieve that is transparency by PRS for Music on who and what it is they represent. Again, the lack of transparency by PRS for Music is central to the issues here. Well, that and a complete lack of willingness to change.

With such a system in place, we could easily adopt an automatic payment system which serves an invoice to a venue or promoter in real time that accurately reflects, in full detail, who should actually be paid and how much. Some of my tech heads have suggested we should go much further - with this type of recognition technology allied to direct payment tools, the money could be with the registered songwriters almost immediately with no need for a collections agency at all. I’m not arguing for that, I think PRS for Music do a number of essential things incredibly well. But the possibility exists that they do not need to be involved in this collection at all thanks to the tech developments.

This does not eliminate the need to reform the redistribution mechanism. Even with better data collection, there will always be some proportion of grassroots licence fee income that cannot be attributed to specific performances. The question is what happens to that money, and the current answer is that after three years it is redistributed using major concert series and radio airplay data; a methodology that systematically redirects grassroots money toward mainstream rightsholders.

This is the most structurally perverse element of the entire system and it is entirely within PRS power to change. The redistribution methodology is not mandated by law. It is a choice PRS has made about how to handle undistributable income, and it is a choice that could be made differently. Options include; holding undistributable income in a ring-fenced fund that supports grassroots music development rather than redistributing it upward; distributing it among PRS members who can demonstrate active performance at grassroots venues; using it to fund PRS Foundation schemes that support grassroots songwriters and artists; or even returning a proportion to the venues themselves in recognition that the money was generated by their programming. Any of these would be more defensible than the current approach. PRS board has the authority to change this without external intervention. It has currently chosen not to use that authority.

The power imbalance between PRS and individual venues is not incidental to the overcharging problem; it is what makes the overcharging sustainable. A venue that believes its bill is wrong has, in practice, almost no accessible route to challenge it. The Copyright Tribunal is theoretically available but practically out of reach for most small businesses. MVT dispute resolution support has helped 41 venues recover money they were wrongly charged, but that support is finite and the sector is large.

An independent, low-cost dispute resolution mechanism for venues challenging PRS licensing bills would rebalance this in a meaningful way. It does not need to be elaborate. A specialist adjudication panel with transparent criteria, accessible procedures, and the power to order refunds where overcharging is established would be sufficient. The model exists in other regulated sectors. Its absence in this one is a choice, not a necessity, and the Business and Trade Select Committee should recommend its creation as part of any reform package.

None of this happens without people in specific roles making specific decisions. It is worth being direct about who they are.

PRS board can implement the redistribution reform and commission the data collection infrastructure without any external mandate. It has always had this power. The question of why it has not used it is one the board should be asked to answer, directly and publicly.

The IPO can require PRS to deliver on the 2017 agreement and mandate a reformed tariff based on actual repertoire usage. It has the regulatory authority. What has been absent is the regulatory will.

DCMS has policy responsibility for the creative industries and has repeatedly stated its commitment to supporting the grassroots music sector. The disconnect between that stated commitment and the absence of any intervention in a licensing system that is demonstrably harming that sector is a question ministers should be pressed to address.

The CMA has focused its live music scrutiny on ticketing and venue ownership. The anti-competitive effects of a statutory monopoly conducting systematic overcharging of the sector that constitutes the industry talent pipeline have not received equivalent attention. They should. A formal market investigation into PRS licensing practices for small and medium venues is warranted by the evidence that now exists.

The Business and Trade Select Committee, which is currently conducting precisely the inquiry to which this evidence is most relevant, has the opportunity to recommend all of the above in a single, coherent package of reforms. The evidence is in front of it. The arguments have been made. The 2017 agreement demonstrates that PRS itself has already accepted the diagnosis. The Committee does not need to adjudicate a contested question. It needs to ask why an agreed answer has gone unimplemented for nine years and recommend the mechanisms to ensure it cannot be deferred for another nine.

It would be easy to frame this as a dispute between venues and a licensing body; a commercial disagreement about billing, the kind of thing that happens in regulated industries and eventually gets resolved through the normal channels. In fact, that is precisely what PRS for Music has sought to portray this issue as across the last nine years. To be completely clear, it is not that.

What is at stake is whether the foundational infrastructure of British music can continue to function. The 800+ venues in this network are not a niche interest. They are where every significant British artist of the last sixty years began. They are where the next generation is beginning now. They operate on margins where 53% return no profit at all, where the average surplus across the sector is 2.5% of turnover, where a single unjustified cost can be the difference between a venue continuing and closing. Forty-three grassroots venues closed in 2024 alone. Every closure represents not just a lost space but a lost node in a network; a place where artists developed, where audiences formed, where the connections were made that eventually produce the music that PRS collects royalties on at scale.

The overcharging described in this series is not a minor administrative error. The undistributed money is not a technicality. The failure to implement the 2017 agreement is not an oversight. Together they represent a systematic extraction of resources from the sector that generates the most value for the least return in the entire music economy, in favour of the sector that already generates the most revenue and has the most powerful advocates.

These are solvable problems. Every one of them. The tariff can be reformed. The data collection can be improved. The redistribution methodology can be changed. The dispute resolution gap can be filled. None of it requires anything that does not already exist somewhere in the regulatory and institutional landscape. It requires decisions, by people with the power to make them, taken with the urgency that the situation demands.

The grassroots sector has spent years making the argument. It has built the evidence. It has presented it to everybody with the power to act. It has been patient in circumstances that did not warrant patience.

That patience is not unlimited. And the case for acting, for songwriters, for venues, for artists, for the future of British music, has never been stronger or better evidenced than it is right now.