A new study from the Music Venue Trust has looked into whether current royalty distribution methods properly reflect the music being played in grassroots music venues – and found that only 21 per cent of tracks are properly registered.
The pilot study came in collaboration with Audoo – a company that has developed technology to monitor and observe how royalties are collected and distributed to artists when their music is played.
Carried out between August and September 2026, the study was conducted to see how accurately existing music licensing models reflect the repertoire being performed in grassroots venues. It was also designed to help highlight the potential for technology to improve royalty distribution to songwriters.
Across the 623 hours of live performance audio, the technology identified 134 hours (21 per cent) as matching songs registered with PRS For Music. Music Venue Trust has said that these findings are consistent with its estimates.
MVT also highlighted that the findings back up how it previously challenged the assumption that there is a 100 per cent registered-repertoire, and reaffirms its claims that more needs to be done to improve royalty distribution to songwriters.
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During the pilot, there were 2,238 recognised live performances, including 23 tribute-band sets featuring more than 380 songs. It also identified songwriters performing their own material, including 13 songs from the catalogues of James Walsh of Starsailor and Ben Ottewell of Gomez.
In September alone, there were 1,190 different songs recognised during live performances – with 87 per cent only heard once – and recorded music was equally varied, with 10,943 tracks by 6,248 artists identified.
The repertoire is a stark difference from radio and major-concert consumption, which are commonly used as proxies for royalty distribution, and the findings also showed that no single artist was heard in more than 16 of the 64 venues providing data in September.
“For years, we’ve challenged the assumption that all music performed in grassroots venues is registered repertoire,” said MVT CEO Mark Davyd. “These initial findings raise important questions about how accurately the current licensing system reflects what’s actually being played. This study is an opportunity to move beyond estimates and assumptions and develop an evidence-based approach that works fairly for venues and songwriters alike.”
Steve Robbins, CTO of Audoo, agreed: “Songwriters should be paid when their music is performed, but that depends on knowing what has actually been played. Our technology can provide detailed usage data without requiring venues to submit setlists. This larger study will give us a more comprehensive picture that we hope will benefit venues, songwriters and collecting societies alike.”
The new study will be conducted between October and December 2026 to look deeper into the issue, and it will involve 108 grassroots venues across the UK.
In an Instagram post, MVT said the results of the pilot “don’t mean the remaining 79 per cent is unregistered music,” as “unmatched audio includes speech between songs and material the technology couldn’t identify. But it raises a serious question: how accurately does the current system reflect what’s actually happening in grassroots venues?”
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Discussing the second study they are carrying out, MVT said: “From October to December, MVT and Audoo will measure music usage to build evidence for fairer venue licensing and more accurate royalty distribution, without additional paperwork or setlist submissions.
“Grassroots venues deserve a system that reflects the music on their stages. Songwriters deserve to be paid when their work is performed. Getting both right starts with knowing what’s being played.”
NME has reached out to a PRS representative for comment.
The study into the registered repertoire comes on the heels of more efforts made by MVT earlier this year, when they announced details of ‘Set The Record Straight: Fair Licensing Fees’.
That initiative was done to explore how PRS For Music’s licensing fees are calculated, applied and enforced across the UK grassroots music venue sector, and launched amid complaints of “systemic issues” in the way charges are assessed, along with “incorrect capacity calculations” and “unclear liability between promoters and venues”.
Here, they identified more than £666,000 in discrepancies linked to PRS-related licensing charges, spanning venues across England, Scotland and Wales. In one case alone, they found a £90,000 error – which MVT says would be enough to permanently close a grassroots venue.
“Between March 2022 and June 2025, we estimate £14,000 of unclaimed money from artists. Loads of them would be PRS-registered and would be easy for them to find, but it’s just sitting in PRS’ bank,” said Davyd.
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“It should be in the artist or the writer’s hands, and PRS should have the infrastructure to get it to them,” he added. ““Some of the money in that black hole doesn’t belong to them because they’re not PRS-registered, so who does it belong to? It needs investigating. If it’s that much money just for my venue then just imagine how much is unclaimed in total.”
Soon after the findings were made public, the Council Of Music Makers joined the push to get the company to make more “improvements”.
“There remain a number of areas where further improvements with collective management are needed, to achieve better accuracy, distribution and transparency,” they shared. “CMM members will continue to work with PRS in the interests of our members to ensure that those changes are made in a manner that does not create unintended consequences which would undermine creators’ ability to make a living in an already tough industry.”
These changes it outlined are that “PRS must ensure its licences are fair and transparent for both music-makers and users of music, not least grassroots venues”, and should “also employ new technology to overcome inaccuracies and inefficiencies with songwriter payments”.