Mplc

loislane22

Hi all, I'm after some advice. I own a pub and have been contacted by MPLC to say I need a licence as we have TV's in our bar area. We only show live sport, rolling news and music channels which as I understand means we are exempt from needing a mplc licence. However, when I challenged this, they are now saying we need one to show the world cup and six Nations etc....I have found no where that states we need a mplc licence to show the world cup as it is on terrestrial TV and free to view. All guidance I have found also states there's no need to have a mplc licence in place for world cup matches as they are live sporting games. Any advice would be helpful on this. 

tempus_fugit

This is not an area that I am familiar with, but looking at the MPLC page it seems to state that you need a licence to show any kind of TV in a public place. Also, being free to view does not seem to matter as they even have a specific example where a licence is required that includes free to view programming. Under the exemptions it states "the law provides for a few narrow exemptions. But they are not typically relevant for most organisations. Nonetheless, if you think an exemption could apply to your business, you should contact MPLC or a copyright solicitor to discuss your position."

It might be helpful if you could advise where are you getting the info from that makes you think that you would not require a licence, as the requirement seems on the face of it to apply to your circumstances and that any exemptions would have to be specifically allowed. Maybe someone with more knowledge of the area can advise, but this is how it looks from a layman's position.

Neil_Jones

loislane22 said:

Hi all, I'm after some advice. I own a pub and have been contacted by MPLC to say I need a licence as we have TV's in our bar area. We only show live sport, rolling news and music channels which as I understand means we are exempt from needing a mplc licence. However, when I challenged this, they are now saying we need one to show the world cup and six Nations etc....I have found no where that states we need a mplc licence to show the world cup as it is on terrestrial TV and free to view. All guidance I have found also states there's no need to have a mplc licence in place for world cup matches as they are live sporting games. Any advice would be helpful on this. 

Well I don't know what you're looking at but https://www.themplc.co.uk/page/faqs says "The location requires a licence regardless of who owns the content" which in the case of the World Cup will probably be HBS.

The whole "free to view" thing means its only free to view as in you don't need to pay an extra subscription to receive it.