Regulations on Street Artists in Britain vary too - Italia is not the only country - although I do not know all the reasons why this is.

The Street is in theory a free arena: except that there are a number of different ways it can be controlled locally.

These include:
•	Under the most recent Licensing Act, some local authorities (Comuni in Italia) in popular tourist towns have given themselves ‘premises licences’ for the centres of the city. This in turn gives them the right to control entertainments that happen. there - although in theory this could be a legal help to performers as well as a hindrance
•	Even before the Licensing Act 2006 [check date] some local authorities had made ‘Byelaws’ (local laws) - these need to be approved in the national parliament, but nearly always are - controlling activities in named public places, eg. city centres, parks, beaches, especially when these are things that could be “a nuisance’ (disagio)
•	Commonly (and worryingly) some modern city centres and shopping centres are not in fact public spaces at all, and can be closed and controlled by their landowners (often the same as the builders, or building managers) and ‘security’ companies employed by them - private Vilgili, like in Italia. This applies to some famous busking spots, like Covent Garden Plaza. 
•	I have heard that in some towns and cities where they regulate who is allowed to set up and sell things on the street, the lack of a ‘Street Trading Licence’ (often expensive) has been used to prevent a muscian or performer selling CDs or DVDs. I would have thought that this could be challenged through the courts, though I don’t know of anywhere that this has been done.

It’s probably important that none of these are ‘criminal’ offences (you cannot involve the police) - except when a refusal to comply with the request of a council employee or private security leads to an incident that ‘threatens public order’ (a notoriously lax and variable condition). These kind of excuses are often used, and occasionally overturned by the courts afterwards.

So, if you’re in a town where the council regulates busking, how do they do it? Again, the arrangements are all local, and they vary...
•	In Bath where i live, a city famous for lots of things including occasionally its buskers, there is a ‘Code of Practice’ which is enforced in practice only when there is a complaint (but some local people are very good at complaining) or if somebody is “causing trouble” in another way (eg. they’re drunk).
•	Some cities operate a permit system. Sometimes this costs money (often only a small administrastion fee), sometimes can only be got in advance - though some cities realise that it’s quite normal for performers to arrive in a city without knowing what the regulations are and only wanting to say and work for a few days, so provide a temporary permit or a waiver for people who aren’t staying long - and some even audition, which is a really daft idea if you ask me!
•	London Underground (metro), which for many years intermittently prosecuted buskers, operates its own permit system, which is only open for new applicants intermittently.

The best thing to do nowadays in practice is to find the website of the local authority, “the council”, which will be at town, city, or borough level in large cities. They are the only people who can regulate street entertainers, and if they do, they will say so on their website - or if it’s unclear, they’ll have an information line who will be able to tell you. The one thing they probably won’t tell you is about privately owned ‘public spaces’ like shopping centres. If you know the name, all of those tend to have websites too (pretty vacuous unhelpful ones), but of course you won’t necessarily know the name...