South Indian Music Companies Association (SIMCA) has tied up with Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL), a collective Rights Management organisation, to monetise the public performance rights of the sound records of SIMCA members.

“Before the SIMCA tie-up, we had 270 members and around 2.8 million licensed songs but with this association we have become stronger in the southern market,” said Rajat Kakar, Managing Director & CEO, PPL India.

An affiliate of International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI), PPL India is authorised to issue ‘Public Performance Licence’ on behalf of its members and collect money from commercial establishments such as hotels and restaurants and event organisers who play licensed music records.

“We look forward to garnering revenues on the public performance platform and ploughing it back into content creation, thereby adding value to the music ecosystem in South,” said Rajesh Dhupad, Joint Secretary, SIMCA.

SIMCA currently controls 60 per cent of South Indian music market with over 1 lakh sound records with 89 members, which includes reputed brands such as 5 Star Audio, Satyam Audio, Star Audio among others.

Pan-India presence

“This tie-up will help PPL become a truly representative of body on a pan-India basis while it will help SIMCA have a monetised revenue stream which it was not having so far,” Kakar added.

PPL represents over 317 music labels which covers over 8 lakh Indian music works and more than 1.5 million international works.

Related Topics