Musical Chairs: Town halls and performing rights

One of the more bizarre cases involving performing rights in the UK concerned the so-called "singing granny" who found herself on the end of a prosecution and a fine for singing to herself at work. The Performing Rights Society later apologised.

The PRS is just one of many agencies that look to safeguard copyright and to secure royalties. Agencies exist all over the place. There is one in Spain. It is the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE). According to a piece from "The Diario", there are a number of town halls in Mallorca which don't much care for this body or for the invoices they receive from them.

If you have ever wondered about performances at fiestas and the like and about what happens in respect of payments, you might have thought only about what the performers themselves get paid. But there is another aspect. The SGAE expects a piece of the action. And it looks to the town halls to pay. It all depends what the performance is and how many people live in a given town or village, but payment is still meant to be made. Some Mallorcan municipalities are good at coughing up - Alcúdia is apparently one of them - others are far less inclined to do so, arguing that the invoices are highly subjective or that it should not be they, the town halls, who pay but the performers or the companies staging an event.

This has long been a minefield of interpretation and application. Issues of profit or non-profit intrude as do those of private versus public performance and the actual existence of copyright. In certain cases, some Mallorcan folk music you might imagine, it might actually be difficult to pin down who the rights holder is, if anyone. Charge a town hall, collect the money perhaps and then what? Who gets the royalty?

But there is far, far more to it than just a bit of ball de bot in a town square of a summer's evening. Think about it. Think about all the music in Mallorca. Radio and TV stations or CDs in bars, karaoke, shows, tribute acts, one could go on. All of it is public broadcasting or performance in some way or another. All of it is subject, or theoretically should be subject, to a licence. The SGAE has apparently been pursuing hairdressers and bakeries for playing music, while there appears to be some uncertainty surrounding the status of occasions such as wedding receptions - private or not private. Next time you're in the barber's chair or having a perm, bear in mind that a centimo or more might be going to pay to listen to Lady Gaga.

Some of this may seem heavy-handed, as it has been in the UK, and the SGAE has had any number of critics, but these criticisms have been forthcoming over the past years of greater complexity in rights protection, exemplified by factors like illegal copying and file-sharing. Bodies such as the SGAE are always going to have their detractors, but they serve a legitimate and important purpose, even if some town halls might beg to differ.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.