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!