BBC -and- Eos

In the last week of September, Lindsay Lane appeared in the Copyright Tribunal representing the BBC in a dispute with the collecting society, Eos. Unusually, the Copyright Tribunal was sitting in Wales (in Caernarfon Crown Court) so that a number of witnesses from both sides could give evidence in Welsh, with simultaneous translation. The Copyright Tribunal (chaired by Colleen Keck, with lay members Manny Lewis and Sam Madden) heard a week of evidence and argument about how much the BBC should pay to broadcast the Welsh-language music now controlled by a newly-formed collecting society of Welsh composers and music publishers who left the PRS at the end of 2012. Eos argued that the annual fee should be £1.5 million, whilst the BBC said it should be no more than £100,000. Further information on the dispute is available here.