He was elected as PRS chairman from January 2011, following an extensive career as a PRS board member, a founding director of UK Music and and a driver and early chair of the modern BASCA. Fletcher has long-championed the importance of composers’ rights through these roles, and has approached his post at PRS with a few key messages firmly in mind…
‘By the time you read this I will be coming to the end of my first hundred days in the PRS chairman’s seat. It’s fair to say that things have changed dramatically since I first joined the society as a songwriter in the Sixties. It was quite simple when copyright was territorial and the annual usage of all the works in our catalogue could be counted in millions. It was a big job but it was manageable.
‘But in the past twenty years, the internet has rapidly expanded the potential for music consumption into billions of uses and most of us have difficulty even understanding what that actually means. People are now able to access our music in many completely new ways: time-shifted recordings of broadcasts, mobile phones, online streaming and dozens more entertainment opportunities are emerging every day.
‘Of course, the upside is that our music can now be enjoyed globally by an astonishing number of people. Unfortunately however, because of the scale of it, we must redesign the way in which we attribute value to that enjoyment, and the way in which we formulate user-friendly licenses. Whilst we’re doing that, we also have to maintain maximum protection for our member’s copyrights. So, through my chair at PRS I will be helping our dedicated staff to rewrite the rulebook, and will keep you in the loop every step of the way.’
Guy Fletcher is the Chairman of PRS
‘By the time you read this I will be coming to the end of my first hundred days in the PRS chairman’s seat. It’s fair to say that things have changed dramatically since I first joined the society as a songwriter in the Sixties. It was quite simple when copyright was territorial and the annual usage of all the works in our catalogue could be counted in millions. It was a big job but it was manageable.
‘But in the past twenty years, the internet has rapidly expanded the potential for music consumption into billions of uses and most of us have difficulty even understanding what that actually means. People are now able to access our music in many completely new ways: time-shifted recordings of broadcasts, mobile phones, online streaming and dozens more entertainment opportunities are emerging every day.
‘Of course, the upside is that our music can now be enjoyed globally by an astonishing number of people. Unfortunately however, because of the scale of it, we must redesign the way in which we attribute value to that enjoyment, and the way in which we formulate user-friendly licenses. Whilst we’re doing that, we also have to maintain maximum protection for our member’s copyrights. So, through my chair at PRS I will be helping our dedicated staff to rewrite the rulebook, and will keep you in the loop every step of the way.’
Guy Fletcher is the Chairman of PRS
