The Labour Party broadcast media house One Productions Limited has been ordered by a court to pay over €100,000 in damages after being found guilty of playing copyrighted music without authorisation.

The case was instituted in 2012 by Dingli Co. International Limited on behalf of The Performing Right Society of London (PRS), which is tasked with collecting an annual fee, a royalty, which is distributed to the various artists whose music is broadcast by radio stations.

In its submissions, PRS, which in legal terms is referred to as the “collecting society”, noted that neither One Radio nor One TV had ever paid any royalties since they started broadcasting about 25 years ago.

It complained that One had not even applied to subscribe to the service despite previous court judgments in which it was ordered to regularise its position.

Media house did not apply to subscribe despite previous
court judgments

PRS requested the court to liquidate damages in its favour accordingly.

On its part, the Labour media house argued that the request made by the collecting society was time-barred, while describing the plaintiffs’ claims as unfounded.

In its decision the court, presided over by Mr Justice Mark Chetcuti, confirmed that all claims prior to January 16, 2010, had become time-barred following a decision by another court.

On the other hand the court noted that One Productions had not contested the evidence that it played copyrighted music and had not substantiated its claim that the PRS case was baseless.

The court upheld the PRS request and ordered One Productions to pay €108,196. The damages cover 2010, when the claims were no longer time-barred, to January 2012, when the PRS opened proceedings.

In 2011, a court slapped Nationalist Party media with a bill of €55,086 in a similar case, which was also instituted by PRS.

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