It is important to remember that the musicians and composers of our music often depend on royalty fees to help fund their work. A PPL (Phonographic Performance Licence) is the cheapest and easiest way to ensure that this happens, along with always buying original copies of music from reputable music suppliers. The charge for a PPL is based on your individual music usage and the number of people exposed to it, e.g. Number of classes taught per annum X Average number of students. You will also be asked if you play music in public on any other occasions like a haflah, for instance, or if you teach workshops. Prices vary depending on the individual teacher’s circumstances but in any case would certainly cost the average teacher no more than approximately £30 or so per annum. My annual fee is usually about £75 because I teach a lot of workshops, some of them quite large. You should also get a PPL for any event you hold where you play pre-recorded music like haflahs, shows and other dance events. PPL Licensing will charge you a small fee for a one-off licence that provides all the appropriate licensing required and again is based on how many people you expect to attend. PPL can be contacted by telephoning: 020 7534 1000 or on the internet at http://www.ppluk.com

The person who videos your event needs a licence from the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society Limited. This licence provides the videographer with similar cover to that of the PPL in that it provides for Royalty fees to be paid to in the case of copyrighted music or sound recordings. You must have one of these licences regardless of whether or not you intend to sell the video as it is a fee for actually recording the soundtrack of the video if it includes pre-recorded music of any sort. If you are using only live music then you should negotiate with the musicians in advance any fees for using their music in this way. MCPS Media Licensing is the main point of contact for all music clearance advice concerning a range of audio visual and creative use, they provide an excellent service advising on how to make sure shows/performances, etc. are properly covered by the appropriate licence. You can contact them on:

MCPS Media Licensing
Copyright House
29/33 Berners St
London W1T 3AB http://www.mcps.co.uk
Tel: 020 7306 4500 Fax: 020 7306 4380

It is also important to remember to ask your performers for their consent to use their performance in your video. Many top dancers do not permit videos to be made of their performances unless they can have complete editorial control and/or veto over the final product, because their work is their livelihood and a substandard video may reflect poorly on their reputation. Also, in the case of choreography for instance, they wish to protect their work from being duplicated without their consent. However, even the most inexperienced of performer may not want their performance captured on tape. Therefore it is always a good idea to confirm everything in writing first and get written consent from all your performers that they are happy for their performance to be recorded for posterity.

© Afra al Kahira

This article first appeared in Taqasim Magazine and was updated in July 2005