Did you know that Infosys, Apollo Hospitals, the Indian Railways and a whole host of offices, salons, hotels and malls that play any kind of music on their premises are paying an annual fee to Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL). But there is also a large section of hotels, pubs and the event-organising community that is evading paying this fee.
One of the biggest challenges faced by the music industry is the violation of music copyrights, which over a period of time, has led to the loss of several crores of rupees in revenues due to non-payment of licence fees, says Mr Sowmya Choudhry, Country Head, PPL.
Apex licensing arm
PPL is the apex licensing arm of the Indian Music Industry (IMI) that is authorised to issue licences to any hotel/pub/event organiser involved in the commercial playing of copyrighted music. It administers the broadcasting, telecasting and public performance rights on behalf of its 200-plus members that include music companies in India. These companies have assigned their performing rights in sound recordings to PPL, by virtue of which it is the designated authority to issue Public Performance Licences for commercial playing of copyrighted music.
While PPL retains 15 per cent of the revenues collected, the Government earns 10.3 per cent of this through service tax and the rest is IMI's revenues. “Violations are high as several event organisers and hotels and restaurants do not voluntarily pay the fee. Last year, for instance, PPL collected Rs 200 crore, which is just a drop in the ocean and our revenues should run into thousands of crores,” he says.
“Although the fact that more than one person is listening to music in his home like during festivals or parties does amount to some kind of copyright violation, the law is not very strict about music played during such personal events at homes,” explains Mr Choudhry.
National campaign launched
PPL has now undertaken a national campaign, where it obtains injunctions from various courts including the High Courts against all defaulting venues if the licence fee is not paid.
It recently won three cases of music copyright violation/infringement against Event and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA), The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) and Bangalore Fashion Week (BFW).
Mr Choudhry said about five per cent of the hotels and restaurants default every year.
Employees
PPL, at present, has 600 employees and about 500 members in the task force that monitors events in public places in the major cities. “We do get help from the local police but we realise that they have their priorities. For them RDX is more important than pirated music,” points out Choudhry.