Campaign to make de facto monopoly PRS (The Performing Right Society) accountable to its members
In the 70s and 80s I campaigned pro bono to make The Performing Society (PRS), a de facto monopoly, to all its Composer and Publisher members and challenged PRS’s lack of transparency and control by a self-perpetuating oligarchy of high earners.
My efforts secured the following major reforms:-
Enfranchising 86% of PRS members who, prior to my campaign, were denied the right to vote, attend Annual General Meetings or inspect the accounts.
Stopping the practice of paying interest-free loans to top executives to prevent them buying houses with PRS members money.
When PRS’s refused to disclose its voting list of the 10 vote high earners to enable me to campaign for an Independent Review of PRS, I took action in the Media, Courts and Parliament.
With strong support from Clement Freud MP’s cross-party group of MPs I finally secured what became known as ‘The PRS amendment to the Companies Act 1982’ that compelled PRS and all Guarantee Companies to provide members with voting lists.
My role in reforming the PRS was widely acknowledged and welcomed in the media* and Parliament and widely recognized as a victory for democracy, not least by US Corporate Watchdog Lewis Gilbert’s Democracy Inc. and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. (Report on Performing Right in 1996).
See media coverage
PRS Campaign
Trevor took on the PRS and won Read More
The PRS CEO’s unsuccessful attempt to stifle dissent with a failed libel suit against me for saying that PRS must act “properly honestly and openly” prompted former Home Secretary Leon Brittan to offer his ‘pro bono’ services as defence libel lawyer.
It also provoked comedian Spike Milligan to write in his inimitable style:-
Daily Mail, Friday, June 15, 1979 Law suit
NATIONAL HEALTH gives us free medicine; Legal Aid gives us free legal advice. Now – according to your report (City Page, May 25)-we have the Performing Rights Society which gives free libel suits (to the top brass). As a PRS member, I am sending them my inside-leg measurements so they can fit me up with a free libel suit.
SPIKE MILLIGAN, London, W.
The PRS took 30 years before crediting me with the above reforms in its 2015 Centenary Report as follows: –
“PRS underwent massive internal structural change during the seventies, initiated in 1975 by composer, publisher and solicitor Trevor Lyttleton. His calls for an overhaul of the society’s voting system and member structure eventually ended up in the House of Commons.”
PRS Chairman Guy Fletcher OBE added the following accolade in a letter to me in 2015:
“I’m pleased to say the PRS is a very different organisation to that in the seventies … we do have a tight grip on decent governance and a democratic voting system … this is in large measure due to your fantastic work forty years ago”.