UK Music Jobs reported today that “The partnership of UK collection societies Performing Rights Society (PRS) and Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) is to be realigned following a recent decision by both sets of board members. The alliance known as PRS for Music will now be wholly owned by PRS after MCPS agreed to sell its shares. The move comes as a result of the financial difficulties of MCPS in recent times and will free up revenue and resources to hopefully balance out their difficulties. They will continue with licensing administration royalty processing and account management for members and PRS will now deliver all royalty processing services to MCPS members who have a current PRS for Music service agreement. Both sides have also agreed to the aim of further reducing costs looking at creating more efficient operations. Effectively MCPS becomes a ‘customer’ of the PRS business as opposed to being a co-owner. Guy Fletcher Chair of PRS said in a statement “With this deal we will continue to act in the interests of all of our members ensuring the business manages its costs appropriately and delivers stability of royalty income in an ever changing world.†Chair of MCPS Peter Cornish added “Despite collecting royalties of almost £176m* for MCPS in 2012 we have been unable to reduce costs as quickly as we’d like with our current structure. Contracting with PRS will allow us to become more efficient and continue to serve the needs of members.†All PRS for Music members were notified in 2012 of changes to administration and commission rates in order to allow the business time to agree a restructuring and recovery plan. The change to administration rates will remain in place until December 2013. Members will be notified of changes following the new deal in the coming weeks. For more information on PRS for Music go to prsformusic.com.
