A town centre nightclub might struggle to keep the party going after it was banned from playing music.

Glam in Maidstone will be unable to perform one of its key roles after a judge at London’s High Court imposed an order prohibiting the owners from playing sound recordings owned by Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) until they bring their licence up to date.

Mr Justice Barling imposed the ban on Affluent Leisure Ltd, which owns the King Street club, formerly known as Vanity.

In addition to the ban the company, which was not represented in court, was also ordered to pay £1,658 in legal costs by next Friday.

In order to play copyrighted music, clubs must acquire a licence from royalties collector PPL who own the rights to the vast majority of chart hits.

Failure to turn the premises into a music-free zone until all licence fees are brought up to date would be regarded as contempt of court, the penalties for which can be fines of up to £10,000 and up to six months prison.

The judge was told that a PPL inspector visited the premises before its name change in April and heard music, including Die Young by Ke$ha and Fade by Soul Music and Kimblee, being played when no permit was in force.

Ashton Chantrielle, representing PPL, said solicitors had sent letters to the premises informing management of the nature and extent of the company’s repertoire and reminding the club that the public broadcast of recordings without a licence or permission constitutes infringement of its copyright.

Manager of the nightclub, James Hunter, said: “We have only just learnt of the order and paid for a licence today. We did not receive any letters from PPL and this may be because we haven’t got the key to our post box, the post box is now being removed.”

PPL have confirmed its solicitors are in talks with the club and are in the process of putting licensing arrangements in place.

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