Is PPL PRS legitimate? What the company is and how to check a genuine letter

PPL PRS Ltd is a genuine, registered UK company, not a scam. It's a joint venture between PPL and PRS for Music, the two organisations that between them licence the public performance of recorded music and songs in the UK, and it issues TheMusicLicence on their behalf. That said, real companies do get impersonated by scammers, so it's worth knowing how to check that a specific letter, email or call is genuine before you assume otherwise.

The company itself#

PPL PRS Limited is a private company limited by shares, registered in England and Wales with company number 10376001. It was incorporated on 14 September 2016 and its registered office is Mercury Place, St. George Street, Leicester LE1 1QG. You can check this yourself on Companies House. Its VAT registration number, published on its own governance page and Code of Conduct, is 257767651.

It's a joint venture set up by Performing Right Society Limited (trading as PRS for Music, established 1914) and Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL, established 1934), the UK's two collective management organisations for music copyright. Since February 2018, rather than businesses needing two separate licences, PPL PRS Ltd has administered a single combined licence, TheMusicLicence, on their behalf. It licenses under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which gives copyright owners the right to control public performance of their musical works and sound recordings.

Is it regulated?#

PPL and PRS for Music are collective management organisations subject to the Collective Management of Copyright (EU Directive) Regulations 2016, and PPL PRS Ltd is subject to the relevant parts of those regulations as their subsidiary. The Intellectual Property Office monitors compliance. Disputes about the terms of PRS for Music's and PPL's tariffs fall within the jurisdiction of the Copyright Tribunal, an independent tribunal established under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

How to check a letter, email or call is genuine#

PPL PRS publishes its own guidance on this. It says it will contact you by telephone, email or post, and lists its verified telephone numbers on its website, all starting 0800 or 0116. Genuine emails come from an address on the '@pplprs.co.uk' domain, or from a small number of named third parties using '@etc.themusiclicence.uk'. PPL PRS's own advice is to check the domain of any email you receive and, if you're in doubt about whether correspondence or a payment link is genuine, to contact PPL PRS directly rather than act on the letter or email itself. You can check its bank details for BACS payments against its published Company and Finance Information document before paying anything unfamiliar.

• Check the phone number against PPL PRS's published verified numbers rather than one printed only on the letter you've received.
• Check the email domain: genuine correspondence uses @pplprs.co.uk or, for some third parties, @etc.themusiclicence.uk.
• Don't use a payment link from an unsolicited message. Check bank details against PPL PRS's own published company information first.
• If in doubt, contact PPL PRS through the number or contact form on pplprs.co.uk, not through contact details given only in the letter.

Why some people ask if it's a scam#

TheMusicLicence is a mandatory-feeling cost that lands as an unexpected invoice, sometimes for premises that thought they didn't need a licence, and the letters can read as pressuring. That combination understandably makes people search to check it's real. Genuine invoices are still just that: a real bill for a real licence, calculated (rightly or wrongly) against a published tariff. Some customers have complaints about how their invoice was calculated or how they were contacted, which is different from the company being fraudulent, and PPL PRS has its own complaints procedure and Dispute Resolution Ombudsman route for exactly that kind of dispute.

If the invoice itself looks wrong#

A genuine PPL PRS invoice can still be based on out-of-date or incorrect figures. That's a different question from whether the company is legitimate. Our letter decoder explains what the different PPL PRS documents mean, and if you want a written, independent check of whether your bill is actually calculated correctly, the free Invoice Check reviews one invoice and gives you a verdict either way. MLC is independent and is not affiliated with PPL PRS, PPL or PRS for Music.

Sources#

• PPL PRS Ltd overview, Companies House
• PPL PRS Assurance: how PPL PRS will contact you
• PPL PRS Code of Conduct, April 2026 (PDF)
• PPL PRS Company and Finance Information (PDF)
• About PPL PRS

Being called or written to when you don't play any music? See what to do if PPL PRS keeps contacting you, or tell us what happened.

• Understand a PPL PRS letter →
• What is PPL PRS? TheMusicLicence explained →

This guide is general information, not legal advice, and MLC is an independent consultancy, not affiliated with PPL PRS Ltd, PRS for Music or PPL.