Thursday 28 July 2011

Licence judgment in Radio City's favour, IPRS to appeal

It could well end up being music for the radio industry’s ears. In a judgment delivered on 27 July 2011, the Bombay High court stated that leading FM player Radio City would now have to only deal with Phonographic Performances Limited for obtaining a licence to play music on its stations, and the Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) cannot claim or demand royalty or license fees for playing recorded music from it.
Music Broadcast Private Limited (MBPL) – the company behind Radio City – has been fighting the case against Indian Performing Right Society since 2006. It had all along stated that it has been paying IPRS royalties for broadcast of sound recordings under a mistaken belief of law for nearly a decade. MBPL has demanded a refund of Rs 12.7 million which it has forked out as royalty/ license fees to the IPRS from 1 August, 2003 to 31 July, 2006.

Radio City 91.1 FM CEO Apurva Purohit said, “This judgment vindicates our position on the actual ownership of the music we play, that is, the music labels/producers have bought the rights to all sound recordings. Thus we have been paying royalty to PPL and other individual music companies for the sound recordings we play from the inception of FM radio. It is clear that these rights subsume any other rights and we have used the due process of law to reach this conclusion. It is indeed a landmark judgment for the entire radio industry and we are pleased that all our efforts and hard work have paid dividends for not only Radio City but the industry. We will continue to partner the music and film industry and the artiste community by promoting and popularizing all genres of music.”
However, IPRS CEO Rakesh Nigam does not concur with the court’s decision and calls this is the most absurd judgement. According to him this is the first time in the world that literary/music work licences have been segregated from sound recording licences. “The court has understood the broad ramifications on the industry which this judgement will have and has stayed it till 31 October giving us room to appeal. We will definitely go ahead and appeal as soon as possible because this is an anamoly which is not there in any part of the world” says Nigam.
Well we obviously have not seen the last of this battle. It’s onto the court’s for the next round.

Source:
http://cablequest.org/news/legal-news/item/725-licence-judgment-in-radio-citys-favour-iprs-to-appeal.html
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/legal-news/item/725-licence-judgment-in-radio-citys-favour-iprs-to-appeal.html

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