Recorded music licence fee collection up 30%: PPL

Music licensing company PPL has said its revenue has registered a 30 per cent increase in the first half of this fiscal due to expanded membership base resulting in increased number of songs for licensing, rationalisation of licence fees, and effective copyright protection measures.

The Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) owns as assignee the right to licence public performance and radio broadcasting.

A top official of the company said that PPL is signing reciprocal agreements with similar organisations in several countries.

"During the first half of the current fiscal, the company has logged a growth of 30 per cent as per our projections. The revenues from radio broadcasting have gone up by 8-9 per cent and over 30 per cent from public performance/playing of music. We are confident of achieving the target of 30 per cent growth in licence revenues," Rajat Kakar, President and CEO, PPL told IANS.

Kakar said PPL now has 317 members covering nearly 95 per cent of the organisations in the Indian music industry.

The PPL owns as assignee the rights for more than 29 lakh international and Indian songs (sound recordings).

He said by 2018 end, the number of songs under its portfolio will further go up.

According to PPL's annual report, the company ended 2017 with Rs 19.78 crore from radio broadcasting and Rs 54.63 crore from licensing of public performance.

"The challenge is to convince people/organisations to pay licence fee for playing the music. The fee structure is based on the kind of establishment where the recorded music is played," Kakar said.

According to him, the company meets its expenses out of the licence fee collected and the balance is distributed to the copyright owners.

Kakar said online licensing facility will be implemented fully from next fiscal.

He said public notice will be issued next week for hotels, night clubs and other establishments to get proper licence from it for playing copyrighted music.

He said PPL has the rights covering various language music including English, Spanish, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Malayalam, Bhojpuri and others -- including film and non-film songs.

"Globally, the sound recording companies get about 25-30 per cent revenues from public performance licencing. But in India, it is in single digits," Kakar said.

According to him, the Indian music industry is worth about Rs 850 crore of which nearly 50 per cent is film music.

Kakar said PPL does not conduct raids on establishments that plays music to detect copyright violations like software companies but has audit teams that would do a diligent work based on which the violators are issued notice.

--IANS

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