Franchises settle violation of royalty rights

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At least five of the eight franchises for the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament have agreed to pay the necessary licence fee to use songs and performances at the stadiums during matches, after the high court (HC) here had observed there was a violation of royalty rights.

The franchises settled the matter on Saturday with the Indian Singers' Rights Association (Isra). The latter represents 282 artistes, including Lata Mangeshkar, Sonu Nigam, Arijit Singh, Sunidhi Chauhan and Kailash Kher.

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The franchises will now have to pay nearly Rs 1 lakh each for every match they play during the IPL 2016 edition. Isra expects to get Rs 1.2 crore from the eight franchises, if the other three teams follow suit, this year.

The five which have bought the licences from Isra are Kolkata Knight

Riders, Mumbai Indians, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Daredevils. Yet to settle with the artistes' body are Rising Pune Supergiants, Gujarat Lions and Kings XI Punjab.

"After the court's order, the five franchises have agreed to pay the licence fees to us, set at Rs 1.33 per seat per match of a stadium," Pravin Anand, managing partner of Anand & Anand, the law firm representing Isra, told this newspaper.

A spokesperson of the Pune franchise, participating in IPL this year for the first time, said: "We have not yet used any such content. We played our first match yesterday and have used only our theme song, for which we own the rights". Officials of Gujarat Lions and Kings XI Punjab could not be reached till this copy went to press.

In the current edition of IPL, each team will be playing at least 14 group league matches. The league has 60 matches in its schedule, including three eliminators and one final.

The HC of Delhi had on Friday ordered that no franchise or the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) could use any such songs or performances until the next order. It also asked the event management firm, DNA Entertainment Networks, to refrain from playing the songs till April 19, the next hearing, when BCCI would also respond to the notice. Several calls made to DNA's offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru went unanswered.

"Till the next date, defendants shall remain restrained from in any manner communicating to the public (via radio, TV, mobile phones or any other medium) Isra's repertoire during IPL matches, comprising of performances of all its members (live or recorded), without obtaining a performer's rights clearance certificate from Isra, or doing any other act infringing the members performers' rights or doing any act violating the members right to receive royalty," ordered judge Vipin Sanghi.

Isra had earlier sought the HC's intervention on the alleged violation of the 'right to receive royalty' by the franchises. The latter had in the earlier seasons used songs and performances of artistes without paying any royalty.