Rowntree v Performing Right Society: Court of Appeal dismisses Blur drummer's black box royalties class action

The Court of Appeal has dismissed a collective action brought by David Rowntree, the drummer of Blur, against PRS for Music, holding that the organisation's method of distributing unmatched royalties to songwriter members cannot constitute an abuse of dominance under the Competition Act 1998 where the claimant has failed to identify any plausible alternative distribution rule against which the current approach can be measured as unfair.

In David Alexander de Horne Rowntree v Performing Right Society Limited and PRS for Music Limited [2026] EWCA Civ 814, Lord Justice Miles, with whom Lord Justice Zacaroli and Lord Justice Nugee agreed, dismissed both grounds of appeal against the Competition Appeal Tribunal's decision to strike out the claims and refuse certification as collective proceedings.

Background

The Performing Right Society (PRS) is a non-profit collective management organisation with approximately 175,000 members, of whom around 165,000 are songwriter members and 10,000 are publishers. It collects and distributes performing rights royalties for musical works. Where royalties cannot be matched to specific works or members owing to data or reporting failures, they are known colloquially in the industry as "black box" royalties. PRS distributes these pro rata, in the same proportions as matched royalties.

Mr Rowntree, acting as proposed class representative for all songwriter members of PRS between March 2017 and the date of issue, alleged that the pro rata distribution rule abused PRS's dominant position by unfairly favouring publisher members. The basis of the claim was that data failures disproportionately affect songwriter members, given their greater number and the fact that foreign collective management organisations tend to pay publishers directly while accounting to PRS for the writer share. On that premise, a greater proportion of black box royalties was likely to represent songwriter entitlements, making pro rata redistribution systematically unfair to writers as a class.

The Court's reasoning

The Court of Appeal held that the claim was unsustainable at a more fundamental level than the class definition difficulties identified by the CAT. The essential problem was the absence of any counterfactual. An assessment of whether a distribution rule is unfair requires comparison with a proposed alternative. No such alternative had been advanced, either before the CAT or on appeal.

Miles LJ explained that the only distribution that could in principle serve as a benchmark for unfairness was the "true distribution" that would have existed in a world of complete data. But that distribution was by definition unknowable: the very problem giving rise to black box royalties was the absence of the information needed to make it. Because the true distribution could never be ascertained, it could not function as a meaningful comparator.

The sole alternative even loosely floated during proceedings, a per capita distribution to all members equally, was swiftly disposed of. Such a rule would in fact be detrimental to large numbers of songwriter members, including the most commercially successful ones, whose pro rata share under the current system would far exceed an equal division across 175,000 members.

The court also rejected the statistical premise underpinning the claim. Even accepting that data failures were more likely to affect writer members on average, this did not mean that any individual writer, or writers as a class, had been unfairly treated. The PRS does not distribute by reference to class membership but on a work-by-work basis. Members whose catalogues are played extensively benefit accordingly, regardless of whether they are writers or publishers. No distribution rule could guarantee a closer approximation to accurate entitlement in the absence of the very information whose absence defines the problem.

Miles LJ was equally clear that competition law does not function as a general law of consumer protection. The Chapter II prohibition does not impose an obligation on a dominant undertaking to organise its business in the way most advantageous to a sub-group of trading partners. It was, he observed, far from the paradigm case of exploitative abuse.

The court noted that the PRS's Distribution Committee, which approves distribution policy, comprises equal numbers of writer and publisher representatives alongside independent non-executive directors, and is required to act in the interests of all members. PRS had also taken extensive steps, including lowering its manual matching threshold from £5 to £3, to reduce the volume of unmatched royalties.

Both grounds of appeal were dismissed. The proceedings were brought by Tim Ward KC and Jack Williams of Willkie Farr & Gallagher for the appellant and opposed by Marie Demetriou KC and Charlotte Thomas of Macfarlanes for the respondents.

Tim Ward KC and Jack Williams (instructed by Willkie Farr & Gallagher (UK) LLP) appeared for the appellant. Marie Demetriou KC and Charlotte Thomas (instructed by Macfarlanes LLP) appeared for the respondents.