The MCPS-PRS Alliance rebranded PRS for Music Jan 2009 - MCPS (Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society

Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society

The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society is an organisation that pay royalties to composers, songwriters and music publishers when a composition is manufactured into any format. This includes copies of the music alone such as CDs and downloads, and also products that use the music as a part of...

) and PRS (Performing Right Society

Performing Right Society

PRS for Music is a UK copyright collection society undertaking collective rights management for musical works. PRS for Music was formed in 1997 as the MCPS-PRS Alliance, bringing together two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society and Performing Right Society...

) are the not-for-profit UK collecting societies that ensure composers, songwriters and publishers are paid royalties

Royalties

Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...

 when their music is used: from live performance to TV and radio, CDs to DVDs, downloads, streams and everything in between. MCPS and PRS entered into an operational alliance in 1997.

The Alliance became one of the founding members of UK Music

UK Music

Launched on September 26, 2008 UK Music is an umbrella organisation which represents the collective interests of the production side of UK's commercial music industry: artists, musicians, songwriters, composers, record labels, artist managers, music publishers, studio producers and music collecting...

, an industry wide body representing all aspects of the music business in September 2008.