1.0 Reliance Upon PRS/MCPS

Both organisations have international relationships so that a writer may wonder why he or she need bother to make any other arrangements. Why not simply wait for the monies earned overseas to flow through via the appropriate organisation? There are two main problems. The first is that the system itself is not particularly efficient. Neither the PRS nor the MCPS automatically notifies its affiliated societies of its claim to royalties. They will, however, make such requests by a system of international “fiches” in response to the copyright owner’s request. This system is not wholly computerised and there is some doubt about whether the overseas societies will always act on the notifications. Worse still, there may be local covers of which the copyright owner is unaware and which, therefore, are never notified. The other problem is that even if the societies manage to collect the funds in the first place there is a significant delay in the remittance of those funds. The theory is that if, instead, the writer were to be represented by a publisher in the relevant overseas territory then that overseas publisher would be charged with the responsibility of registering its interest and ensuring that the local collection society makes payment direct to that publisher. Because the local publisher has a vested interest it seems that this generally results in the funds being paid through rather more efficiently than is the case where the local society is left of its own volition to pass funds back to PRS/MCPS. Moreover, there is not necessarily so significant a saving involved in relying upon the PRS/MCPS because two sets of commission will be charged i.e. the overseas society will deduct its commission before accounting to the PRS/MCPS and the PRS/MCPS will then deduct its own commission before accounting on to the copyright owner.