PPL targets tier 2 cities on New Year eve
MUMBAI: Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL), the licensing arm of the Indian Music Industry (IMI) has widened its New Year monitoring activities to events in tier two cities like Jaipur, Pune, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Goa, Bhubaneshwar, Siliguri and certain cities in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar and Jharkhand.
Says PPL country head (events) Sowmya Chowdhury, For defaulters who are still refusing to pay the license fee, we have procured an injunction order from the court for nonpayment. If these defaulters are found playing our music, we would later lodge a criminal case against them to claim damages....
Some of the hotels in Kolkata against whom injunctions have been issued include Silver Arcade, Vedic Village, Aquatica, Floatel Hotel etc. For tapping defaulters, PPL would be sending a team of vigilance officers to these venues. We have a vigilance team of 30-40 people in each city who would buy tickets and record the shows to see if our music is being played. It would be contempt of court and violation of copyright if they are caught playing our music....
The license fee for events starts from Rs 35,000 and can even go up to a million rupees, depending on the size of the event.
Chowdhury points out that the recent terror attacks have dampened the celebrations across India. Celebrations in Mumbai are on a low scale owing to terror attacks; more than 50 per cent of events in Mumbai have been called off. We were expecting major celebrations before the attacks but apart from Mumbai, other cities are also celebrating in a subdued manner....
DJs too will not be spared if they continue to play music without DJ licenses. Apart from the event license bought by the event organisers for the venue, DJs performing at the events are also liable to own their DJ licenses. DJs usually consolidate tracks and work on them, so they are bound to buy an annual DJ license of Rs 7500 every year....
To create awareness, PPL and IPRS took the FM route this year by hosting advertisements on SFM and Big FM. The ads have helped in creating awareness and our revenues have increased by 30 per cent as compared to last year,... says Chowdhury.
