Well, that has to be good news! Now just £100 a year for the convenience of using a digital system.

I could never understand why it expired if it wasn't necessary to renew it. I even wrote to them for an explanation. Looks like they agreed. Great news all round! Will I get another licence without an expiry if I have no need to renew because I want one, will need one!

Garath

Renewed mine last week, now its up to all venues to start implementing the pro-dub licence when booking a DJ as with p.a.t and pli. Once that starts happening those who have the proper documents will all be happy. Lets start getting tough with those DJs who are getting away with it.
Chris

When are ProDub going to start contacting DJ's that are NOT ProDub licenced. We've paid for it - now let's reap the benefits.
If you are a DJ with MP3's get licenced or stop working, same as with PAT and PLI and of course Registration for Tax and NI.
I would quite happily encourage keeping the business for properly run discos. Get rid of the thousands of backhander under pricing DJ's that are out there.

Adrian North is spot on. I wholeheartly agree with him, Pro-dub start acting tough, make examples of some of these clubs and DJs who are getting away with it. Maybe we should have a DJ licence??

I agree with both Adrian and Chris. There might be a way. If there was a standard letter on here we could download regarding Produb we could all print off a few copies between us and hand it to the manager of the venues. I think venues would act, if they actually knew about it.

A friend of mine now runs a bar and knew nothing about the legalities with a DJ. She does now and always checks them out as they enter her club.

As for a DJ licence.....My NADJ card is mine!!!

I have just renewed my produb, with a top-up of 1000 tracks, and the PDF licence still has an expiry date!
I have emailed them asking why, but I don't suppose I will get a reply.

As for the comments above - none of the venues we cover around Newbury/Basingstoke/Reading even know anything about the licence.
It does start to get to you that once again we pay to be professional, but our maney seems wasted.

Sorry - not that professional when I can't even spell money correctly!!

I live and work in Spain and although their FAQ states that the license is for use in the EU or (EEA!) nobody I have spoken to here, in English or Spanish, has even heard of ProDub. None of the BIG Spanish DJs, from the clubs have a knowledge of this, nor do the clubs!

I used to manage a Radio Station have have over 50,000 tracks backed up, BUT probably 35,000 of these tracks will never be played, as they are minor CD Album tracks.

It would seem that this license may just kill off the purchase of the CD, in download or touchy-feely format, since DJs will only purchase and copy and then register what they really think they shall need!

It reminds me of the rip off car companies who give you a car with a full tank of petrol, or half a tank, and then tell you to return the car empty. One pays for the full tank. Thus, one always tries to run the car with the needle close to empty, not wishing to top it up as one will end up returning the car with additional gallons of petrol in it which one never used.

What does one do! Wipe all of the back-up drives and then reload new drives with the 'popular' music that might be requested at a wedding or on the radio. Require all couples to provide a 'playlist' for every gig and end up as a 'live' iPod on stage with some nice lights, amplification and a mic!

There never shall be a level playing field. We have DJs here in Spain who will do a night's work for €50, no NI, no tax, no produb. It's just not possible to compete.

Maybe someone can sell me on why I should sort out my entire cd and record collection and build lists of records that I 'might' use some day.

I'm presently back 'home' in Northern ireland, and nobody here, that I have spoken to, even from within the BBC, have heard of produb!

Back in the dark ages.

One year old it may be but I only just got to hear about it from a mate and he only heard about it because someone knew about it and told him.

Why am I only finding about it now, from a mate, and I've been in the business a long time.

But think about this.

When I purchased the CD-G's I use for karaoke, I paid extra to those companies advertising MCPS tracks. I deliberately chose MCPS tracks so I paid when purchasing the disk.

You, we, I, buy a PPL and / or MCPS as the right to use the CD music in public.

You purchase a track (s) from iTunes. Apple have included in the price an agreed royalty rate with the record companies.

The venues that employ us are required to pay PRS for the music we play and perform.

How many times do the PRS want to collect a royalty for punters to hear the same track played on a single night?

Come on people. Stand up and be counted. It's more carbon friendly to store on a laptop. A laptop is less cumbersome than a twin CD (CD-G) player and uses less electricity.

How many of you DJ's as well as karaoke DJ's using CD's (which doesn't require a produb), end up with only one track in use from the whole CD? And what about when the damn disk stops working because the disk has become scratched or damaged. You don't get to buy another copy less the royalty charge.

According to what I've read, if we use a laptop and the HD becomes damaged and we have to download again then we're up for another bundle to PRS because it's additional download in one year.

If this is enforceable I'll just go back to carrying around CD's using all that extra fuel to carry them around.

This just hasn't been thought through properly and in the mean time we're paying for the mistakes being made. This is just like buying Windows Beta software and being charged to download the upgrades.

As I said at the start, stand up and be counted. Whose clever extra money making idea was this anyway? I want on the bandwagon (sorry for the pun).