Blur drummer David Rowntree has lost his bid to continue a legal battle over the distribution of £200 million in music royalties
Graham Coxon, Dave Rowntree, Alex James and Damon Albarn of Blur(Image: Getty Images Europe)
Blur’s drummer David Rowntree has lost his bid to continue a legal battle over the distribution of £200 million in music royalties.
Mr Rowntree was seeking to bring a legal claim on behalf of 160,000 songwriters against the Performing Right Society (PRS), which collects royalties and distributes them to songwriters and publishers.
The drummer claims that PRS pays “black box” royalties, also known as unidentified royalties, to publishers, but not to songwriters, which his lawyers described as “systematically and disproportionately biased”.
In August, the Competition Appeal Tribunal threw out the challenge, which Mr Rowntree claimed could see songwriters receive unpaid royalties of up to £200 million, after finding it did not have a “reasonable prospect of success”.
The drummer challenged the decision at the Court of Appeal, with his lawyers telling a hearing earlier this month that the tribunal “erred in law” and should be ordered to reconsider its decision.
The PRS opposed the appeal, with its barristers claiming that the challenge is “unsustainable” and that the legal action “is incoherent and discloses no arguable claim”.
And in a judgment on Monday, Court of Appeal judges dismissed Mr Rowntree’s appeal.
The court was told by the PRS that “black box” royalties are those that the body collects but cannot match to a musical work or pay to an individual because of “data problems”, such as being unable to identify a person’s payment or contact details.
PRS then distributes the royalties “pro rata to its distribution of royalties which can be matched”.
In a 21-page ruling, Lord Justice Miles said that a “true” distribution of these royalties cannot be known “because the root of the black box royalties problem is the absence of accurate information; and, conversely, if accurate information were available, the relevant royalties would be matched”.
The appeal judge said because of this, no member can say they are entitled to any specific amount of those royalties.
He continued: “Once one accepts that the PRS has to adopt some rule of distribution for the black box royalties, the fairness of its chosen rule can only be assessed by comparison with some other rule.
“It makes no sense to speak of any given rule as ‘fair’ or not in an abstract sense.”
The judge said that if the PRS had decided to distribute the revenues differently, it could “demonstrably favour” superstar writers such as Ed Sheeran, compared to artists whose songs are very rarely played.
Lord Justice Miles, sitting with Lord Justice Zacaroli and Lord Justice Nugee, later said that Mr Rowntree “has not offered even a broad description” of a better way to distribute the black box royalties.
He continued: “In my judgment, the reason why no counterfactual has been advanced, even in general terms, is manifest: it is that the very data failure problem which has given rise to the black box royalties means that there is no plausible basis for suggesting a more accurate, let alone fairer, distribution.”
Following the judgment, a spokesperson for PRS For Music said: “The Court of Appeal has once again recognised that this claim has no reasonable prospect of success and has upheld the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s earlier decision to strike it out, vindicating our longstanding position that this claim was never in the interests of PRS members.
“This class action was fundamentally flawed, and was a complete misrepresentation of our policies from the outset. It would have resulted in PRS members suing the society they collectively own, despite there being soaring costs attached and no logical basis for doing so.
“We welcome the decision and look forward to continuing to focus on our main priority which has always been, and remains, delivering value for our members and protecting their rights wherever and whenever their music is used.”
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