{"id":666613,"date":"2026-06-30T19:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/666613\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T19:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:41:12","slug":"blur-drummer-and-ex-norfolk-councillor-loses-royalties-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/666613\/","title":{"rendered":"Blur drummer and ex-Norfolk councillor loses royalties fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Mr Rowntree &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edp24.co.uk\/news\/20716477.its-joy---blur-drummer-stand-councillor-next-election\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">a former Labour county councillor at County Hall<\/a> &#8211;\u00a0 was seeking to bring a collective action against the Performing Right Society (PRS) on behalf of 160,000 songwriters.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He argued PRS pays \u201cblack box\u201d royalties &#8211; also known as unidentified royalties &#8211; to publishers, but not to songwriters, which his lawyers described as \u201csystematically and disproportionately biased\u201d.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  In August, the Competition Appeal Tribunal dismissed Mr Rowntree&#8217;s claim, ruling it had no &#8220;reasonable prospect of success&#8221;.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\"\/>Blur performing at Wembley (Image: Press Association)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Rowntree, whose band had a rivalry with Oasis\u00a0in the Britpop years of the 1990s, appealed the decision, but Court of Appeal judges rejected that appeal on Monday (June 29).\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  A spokesperson for PRS said: &#8220;We welcome the decision and look forward to continuing to focus on our main priority which has always been, and remains, delivering value for our members and protecting their rights wherever and whenever their music is used.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Rowntree, who had hit singles with Blur including Parklife, Girls &amp; Boys, Country House, Song 2 and There&#8217;s No Other Way, was\u00a0a county councillor for Norwich&#8217;s University division from 2017 until 2021.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  In 2011, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edp24.co.uk\/news\/local-council\/21128719.blur-drummer-wants-norwichs-next-mp\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">he was one of four candidates who vied for Labour\u2019s nomination in the Norwich South constituency<\/a>, losing out to current MP Clive Lewis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mr Rowntree &#8211; a former Labour county councillor at County Hall &#8211;\u00a0 was seeking to bring a collective&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-666613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}