Brits Perform Better Overseas

The Performing Rights Society is forecasting this will be the first year that U.K. songwriters earn more from their music being broadcast or performed overseas than they do from physical sales in Great Britain.

PRS mid-year results show it has already collected oversees royalties worth £58.6 million, 14 percent more than the U.K. songwriters got in the first half of 2007.

The money comes from bars, hotels, TV, cinemas, Web sites and concerts in more than 170 countries, from the Ascension Islands to Zambia. The top four countries for U.K. music in the first half of 2008 were the USA, Germany, France and Japan.