Archive for February, 2009
ProDub Meeting
Feb 19th
If you have read our Questions section you may have heard about ProDub which is a licence introduced in 2008 aimed primarily at DJ’s and Gym Instructors. It basically controls the business of converting music from CD into a different format. You yourself may even be ripping music off a CD into MP3 format to put on your iPod. There is a law printed on the CD itself which basically says that you’re not allowed to do this, but everyone does it anyway.
The association that looks after the rights of the artists and bands, the MCPS/PRS Alliance decided that their members are losing out on income from people freely copying and ripping their music. Now, you may argue that if you rip a CD onto your computer just so you can put the MP3 on your iPod does not constitute “making a copy” but you have. Two physical copies of that track or CD now exist and this is where the MCPS/PRS Alliance have introduced controls so that money is given back to their (poor) members to cover all of these copies sitting around. The casual “home ripper” has not yet been targetted, but performers have – I guess because we are an easier target!
Every year we have to report back to the association exactly how many tracks we have ripped and how many we expect to rip in the year ahead. We then purchase a licence that legally allows us to copy any CD’s we purchase and rip them into MP3 format. As you can probably imagine the introduction of the licence has been met with much disgust from DJ’s all over the land. Some DJ’s aggressively oppose the licence and others (such as DISCOfever) are against the introduction of the licence but have purchased it anyway as it makes the copying process we use legal.
There are also other possible implications of this licence being advertised to venue’s asking them to check if a DJ is correctly licenced or not. It is quite possible that this licence could be closely tied into a venue’s own entertainments licence meaning that the hotel could suffer from having it’s own licence taken away if it does not keep records of who performs at their venue and if they were licenced or not.
I actually have a meeting with the guys behind the licence next week to discuss taking the licence forward. I am, for many reasons, well respected country-wide in the DJ industry and to have an audience with them is something not offered to your regular Dave Double-Decks. In essence, anything that makes the DJ industry look more professional gets a big thumbs up from me. For too long now we have been seen as a bunch of hairy-chested, long-haired Whooh Gary Davies wannabe’s earning casual “tax-free” money at weekends. For some, this may be the truth but for me personally, I pay my taxes and DISCOfever pays my mortgage so for me it is a professional job that I rely on. For many reasons it is hoped that the introduction of this licence will go towards regulating our industry which will ultimately help separate the chaff from the wheat, making your job easier when looking to book a DJ!
February = Exceptionally Busy
Feb 16th
Traditionally January and February have quiet periods giving us the opportunity to chill out after a very busy Christmas period. Not for me though, February is mental as far as weddings are going. I had weddings last Saturday, Sunday and Monday (yes, Monday!) and again tonight, tomorrow and Saturday.
What I think is happening now is that weddings are now becoming more of a “all year round” type affair rather than the traditional summer wedding. As the weather here in the UK is so up and down (remember last year’s so-called summer?) good weather cannot be guaranteed and there’s something quite alluring and romantic about a winter wedding. The same goes for the day you actually have your wedding, with most venue’s offering generous discounts for midweek celebrations the traditional “saturday night” party seems to have gone out of the window. Sundays are very popular as are Fridays. We have several celebrations on Thursdays this year as well. It appears that there quite literally is not enough weekends in the year to accommodate all of your parties!
Old Ship Wedding Fayre
Feb 15th
DISCOfever appeared at the Old Ship Wedding Fair today. It wasn’t as well visited as we had hoped especially after investing some serious money in a huge pull-up advertising board. Still, we made the best of those who came to see the fair and spoke to a lot of interesting people! It’s also fair to say we also took some business on the day after speaking to several couples.
The Mother of one couple expressed a concern over booking small companies especially during troubled economic times. Whilst I agree with her concerns, especially with badly run and managed small companies the same can be said for huge companies, for example Woolworths. You can all be assured though that with over 134 confirmed events for the remainder of 2009 “so far” there certainly are no concerns over DISCOfever becoming a victim!
eBay Wedding
Feb 3rd
Some of you may have seen this item of news on various wedding and news websites in the past week. It is of course the story of a couple from Brighton who bid for a wedding reception at the Brighton Best Western Hotel on the 14th February 2009.
Luckily the hotel is just one of the many hotels we provide wedding entertainment for therefore we get to do the disco on their very special and unique day!
It does highlight an interesting point though. More and more couples are turning to eBay to source items for their weddings. A client of mine back in 2007 boasted how she had ordered her wedding dress through eBay from China for just £4.00! She submitted the all-important numbers relating to her size and it arrived a few days later. But it’s true, you can order practically ANYTHING from eBay, favours, place cards, centrepieces…it really is a one-stop-shop for everything and now it seems wedding receptions as well!
