In this interview, Mark Davyd, founder and CEO of Music Venue Trust, mentions the "famous" and famously misattributed Hunter S. Thompson quote about the music industry. It goes "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." It's now common knowledge that Thompson didn't actually say this, or at the very least if he did it wasn't about the music industry. Mark acknowledges as much in this interview. And yet, it remains a perfect summation of the music industry at large even today, and in this interview Mark expounds upon that at length. In April 2026 he unleashed a series of 4 Substack posts which shone a light on the dodgy dealings of the UK's performing rights body PRS for Music. In them, he details how each year millions of pounds earmarked for artists who perform in grassroots music venues is "held" by PRS because they are unable to attribute it to anyone — ostensibly because many of the artists who are due it have never signed up to PRS, and thus the money goes unclaimed. After 3 years, this money is then distributed to the largest music publishers and most successful songwriters in the world. The true figure is difficult to ascertain due to the opaque nature of PRS' reporting, but it is estimated to be around £18m — more than the combined profit generated by all 800+ grassroots music venues in the UK each year. What's happening is, in effect, a reverse Robin Hood scenario where huge amounts of money are being transferred to the most high-profile, wealthiest musicians and publishers. In this episode we dive deep into those 4 articles with Mark, getting to the heart of all that is rotten with the current PRS model, the organisation's response, and some suggestions for how it might be fixed. You can read Mark's articles here: Part 1: https://markdavyd.substack.com/p/prs-for-music-and-the-grassroots Part 2: https://markdavyd.substack.com/p/prs-for-music-and-the-grassroots-5a0 Part 3: https://markdavyd.substack.com/p/prs-for-music-and-the-grassroots-618 Part 4: https://markdavyd.substack.com/p/prs-for-music-and-the-grassroots-3d9 Highlights: 00:00 Grassroots Cash Grab 00:24 Meet the Hosts 01:46 What Music Venues Trust Does 03:30 COVID Crisis Response 07:23 Venue People Helping Venues 09:16 Why PRS Matters Here 12:45 How PRS Works 16:02 Unclaimed Royalties Problem 21:35 Archaic Setlist System 23:22 Tariff LP vs Tariff P 27:35 Real World Money Example 30:40 Show Me the Money 32:00 Unclaimed Royalties Black Box 32:58 Venue Economics And Losses 34:00 Rules Court Case And Publishers 35:53 Broken Reform Promises 39:20 Why PRS Won't Change 42:00 Estimated Bills And CCJs 44:44 Scale Of Grassroots Impact 48:18 Audio Recognition Solution 55:08 PRS Rebuttals And Backlash 59:16 Wrap Up And Where To Read