The licence fees might have to go up if everybody got what was actually coming to them. Or the payouts to the big names that get the airplay would have to come down, since their stuff is in fact not being played in live venues.

I've been thinking about various technical solutions to the problem of under-reported live performances and the problems I do not see a way around are (1) neither the performer nor the venue owner get anything out of doing the work to report the play-list to the PRO. (2) As Brian said, the venue owner is largely not in the music business. If he stopped having music, people would still come for the booze (where the owner makes his money) and the talk. Compare this to radio stations, which *do* report what gets played to the PROs. If they stopped playing the music, people would not tune in just to listen to the advertising (where the station makes its money).

The only conclusion I come to is that live music at a place where people are there for a different reason than listening to the music is not a channel by which songwriters have any way of making money. So look elsewhere.