Performing Right Society

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The Performing Right Society (often shortened to PRS), founded in 1914, is the collecting society for UK songwriters, composers and music publishers. Its role is to act as an agent for its members in order to collect performing royalties whenever their musical works are performed in public, broadcast or transmitted. In 1997 they formed an alliance with their sister company the MCPS, who collect mechanical royalties, to form the MCPS-PRS Alliance.

The Performing Right Society is a not-for-profit company operating under the auspices of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 but it is not a statutory body and has no power to bring criminal proceedings against anybody caught infringing copyright. That power rests with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

[edit] Legal Cases

In 2007, the PRS took "a Scottish car servicing company to court because the employees were allegedly listening to the radio at work, allowing the music to be 'heard by colleagues and customers.'"

In June, 2008, the PRS accused 11 police stations, one of which is in Lancashire, of failure to obtain permits to play music, and seeks an injunction and payments for "damages".^[1]