Copyright Tribunal Refunds

• INTRODUCTION
• THE CLAIMS PROCESS – HOW DOES IT WORK?
  
  
  • Notification of the claims process
  • Making a claim
  • The Claim Form
  • Direct Claims
  • Assessing your claim
  • Payment
  • Timescales
  • Appeals process
• CONTACTING US

INTRODUCTION

Last year the Copyright Tribunal (“the Tribunal”) published its decision that PPL should replace Tariffs 110, 111 and 112 (“the pre-Tribunal Tariffs”) with a revised set of tariffs, namely 210, 211 and 212 respectively (“the Tribunal Tariffs”).  These Tariffs relate to the right to play sound recordings as background music in the following venues:

• 110/210 – Public Houses/ Bars/ Restaurants and Cafes/ Hotels
• 111/211 – Shops and Stores
• 112/212 – Factories and Offices

The Tribunal Tariffs are the same as those that were in force prior to 2005, subject to indexation and an uplift of 10% to allow for the inclusion of broadcast sound recordings within the scope of PPL’s public performance licence.

The Tribunal retained PPL’s concessionary discount for Licensees who only use certain types of broadcast sound recordings (and whose audible area is relatively small).  It also approved the use of a 50% surcharge for those Licensees who do not obtain their Licences on time.

In accordance with the Order made by the Tribunal, PPL has been granting Licences for future use of its copyright in accordance with the terms of the Tribunal Tariffs.  The Tribunal has also ordered PPL to make repayments to both existing and former licensees who paid fees to PPL under the pre-Tribunal Tariffs (which applied to licence years starting from 1 January 2005, although under PPL’s transitional arrangements most licensees did not pay under the pre-Tribunal Tariffs until the licence year starting from 1 January 2006).

You will only be entitled to a refund if you make a claim to PPL for repayment.

The claims process – How does it work?

All Licensees that are within the scope of the Order will be sent a letter inviting them to make a claim (unless they have already submitted a direct claim to PPL).  Letters to current licensees were sent out on 3 June 2010 but letters to former licensees will go out after that date (although PPL aims to despatch those letters by 17 June 2010).   

The letter will be accompanied by a Claim Form that has been specifically designed for the claims process.  Under the terms of the Order you are not obliged to use the Claim Form.  However PPL do require certain information to calculate any refund that you may be due, and need to be satisfied that you are entitled to make a claim and receive any such refund.  The Claim Form has been designed to capture all of this information, so that your claim can be processed as quickly as possible.  Please note that if you do not submit a claim to PPL using the Claim Form then you may not provide PPL with all the necessary information and this could delay the processing of your claim.

In order to make a claim you must either submit a Claim Form using the pre-paid envelope enclosed with your letter or make a direct claim to PPL by writing to us at:

PPL Copyright Tribunal Process
PO Box 67502
LONDON
EC4P 4BD

As explained above you will only be entitled to a refund if you make a claim to PPL for repayment.

If you decide to use the Claim Form to submit your claim then you have two choices for calculating any refund that you may be due:

1. You can ask PPL to perform the calculation on your behalf.  If you want to choose this option then you simply need to indicate this on the Claim Form and provide details of the licences that you are claiming for.  If you were licensed for a hotel and/or a factory or office PPL will require some additional information in relation to those venues – this is clearly indicated on the Claim Form.
2. You can choose to perform the calculation yourself (and guidance notes in the Claim Form are provided to help with this) and submit your claim for consideration by PPL . 

If you want to submit a direct claim (without using the Claim Form) then you will need to write to PPL at the address above and set out the basis of your claim.  It would be helpful if you could provide:

• Your contact postal address
• Your refund reference number (as shown on the letter we will have sent you)
• Details of the licences that you are claiming for
• Details of the refund that you are seeking.

Please note that we can only receive claims in writing.

Once we have received your claim (whether using the Claim Form or by way of a Direct Claim) we will review the information you have provided and will compare this to the information that we hold on our systems.  We shall then write to you with our response (including, where appropriate, details of our calculation (and, if you are due a refund, we will enclose a cheque for the appropriate amount).  If we require additional information we will write to you requesting this information, and will place your claim on hold until we receive this. 

Under the terms of the Order we will only make refund payments where the refund amount for a Licensee (or a group of Licensees under common ownership) is £50 or more (excluding VAT).

If a refund payment is due then we will issue the Licensee with a cheque for the appropriate amount.

We will aim to deal with all claims as quickly as possible.

Where a claim is submitted using the Claim Form, we have 56 days from our receipt of that Claim Form to either:

• Write to you with our decision (and, if you are due a refund, enclose a cheque for the appropriate amount); or
• Write to you requesting such further information as we reasonably require in order to assess your claim.  Within 28 days of our receipt of all such further information, we will write to you with our decision (and, if you are due a refund, enclose a cheque for the appropriate amount).

We will write to you within 42 days of sending our first letter to remind you of your right to claim (if you have not submitted a claim by this point).

PPL has decided that it will provide an appeals process to allow a licensee to challenge the decision made by PPL in respect of the licensee’s claim for a refund.

Therefore if you are unhappy with our decision then you should write to us explaining why you disagree with our decision. 

If appropriate, you should supply evidence, in the form of certified copies of original documents, to support your appeal.  We will consider your appeal and write to you with our response once we have reached a decision.

CONTACTING US

We have set up a dedicated helpline to answer any of your queries in relation to the claims process.  Before ringing the helpline you may find it useful to review our list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), which may contain the answer to your query. 
If you have any queries that cannot be answered by the FAQs please ring us on 020 7007 3500, between 09:00 and 17:00, Mondays to Fridays (excluding public holidays).  Please have your refund reference number to hand to help us identify your records.  Please note that this telephone number is different to our normal number for public performance licensing.

If you have any queries that are not in relation to the claims process then you should contact the normal number.