In the UK, anyone playing digital music from a hard-disk in a public place now has to pay a £235/year fee to the PPL (Phonographic Performance Limited) for a digital DJ licence. Before, it was illegal to play any material not on original discs without permission of the copyright holder. The licence applies to digital tracks sourced from original discs the DJ owns such as CDs and vinyl records, or legally downloaded material. The DJ can't burn an mp3 to a CD however; it's only for material stored on a hard-disk. Effectively that makes the mp3 playback function of CD-DJ decks worthless when playing out. Not content with the money they get in licencing fees from venues, they want money from the DJ too! Many DJs use laptops filled with mp3s because they'll have less to carry around with them. Given time, many venues are unlikely to hire DJs unless they have this licence whether they play digital music files or not. More on the story here.

Who's gonna enforce it though, the Disco Police

Yes I can see it in front of me, police officers with tape around their hats, headbanging their way through the crowd, doing the metal-symbol and shouting "oi mate show me ye license" to the DJ once they get there. Or that's an aussie goth-police and not a disco police (they probably dance like john travolta through the crowd).

/me biatch slaps pollies/lawyers/regulators & other idiots petitioning for this stupid law.