On January 25, 2010
The Event and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) has issued an official statement detailing its point of view on the subject of music licences for live events. An EEMA official explained the context in which the strong statement has been issued. He said, "Recently the issue of music licencing has been gaining quite a lot of attention in the media and legal circles. Also, our friends from the music industry have been releasing large advertisements aimed at creating a fear psychosis among event managers, clients and venues, and thereby trying to extract unfair amounts of money in the process. We would like to bring out our point of view on the subject and try to make this issue easy to understand by event managers, clients and the public at large."
The official further clarified, "As an industry association of event management companies all over India, EEMA is not opposed to the payment of music licences. However, we are opposed to the exploitation by some of the self-proclaimed authorities in collection of music licences. The bodies, which have been authorised to collect music licencing under the Indian Copyright Act, have been exploiting the loopholes in the Act and the lack of guidelines or framework set-out by the government."
The full document detailing EEMA's point of view is as follows:
"1. Tariff structures
The biggest loophole is that even today, after so many years of being responsible for ‘collecting legitimate licencing fees’, the Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) does not have a tariff plan advertised on its website. If one clicks on the tariff page of the website, it asks for details of one's event and then a quotation is 'conjured' accordingly. If the process had been transparent and unbiased, then PPL should not have had a problem in advertising its own tariff list on its website. Fact is, the 'charges' of playing music at an event are not decided by objective standards such as songs, duration in minutes or hours, etc., but by how much money could be extracted from particular events or how high profile that event is. What matters to PPL is not the content of the event which is being broadcast or played, but what is the paying capacity of the audience or the organisers.
However, by using various arm-twisting tactics and unfair means, these bodies try to intimidate event companies, clients and venues into paying exorbitant and unjustified amounts for specific events. An example is that of a certain music week which was being organised by an event manager for four days with a total music duration of six hours (altogether for four days). PPL asked the event manager to pay an amount of Rs 12 lakhs, quoting reasons like, "for fashion weeks, we have a separate unpublished rate". This is a classic case of high-handling and charging exorbitant rates just because the event is high-profile.
In addition to this, PPL sends legal notices to event managers, venues and clients. More often than not, clients and venues are forced to pay heed to these exorbitant demands just because they do not want to get into any legal controversy. This is what the music licencing companies take advantage of and thus continue their exploitation. Each of the industries which have a 'representation' or a body, such as the radio or the hotel industry, have legal cases which are filed in several courts against the music licencing companies due to their unfair and highhanded attitude on the subject.
2. Usage of funds
The usage of funds is not known to anybody. As per the Copyright Act, 85 per cent of the funds collected by music licencing authorities must be given back to the artistes who have performed or composed the music. However, that is not the case and music licencing bodies have only been collecting this money for their own personal gains and have been investing it at various places, such as the stock market, which is contrary to the law. Despite being asked several times, they have not revealed the usage of the money collected at any public forum. If they have been utilising the money collected as per the laws laid out, then they should not have a problem publishing the same on their website, as it would be public information. The creation of these bodies (PPL, IPRS) was done through the Copyright Act in order to protect the artistes. But today, these bodies have become capitalists in their own right and have begun to exploit the society at large.
3. Legal framework
They engage the topmost and most expensive and senior lawyers available in the country and are able to influence the legal system to get some complicated judgments, which are then interpreted by their lawyers in their favour. Then, a PR propaganda is created around them. There have been cases wherein they have influenced police officers and venues by foul means and have stopped shows, which were about to be organised. Such is their might of lawyers that average event companies and clients prefer to pay heed to their exorbitant demands, fearing legal hassles. There is no other 'licence' in the country which is negotiable - be it liquor licence, arms licence or any other statutory licence. However, the music licence is always negotiable in the hands of the music company and two events having the same number of audience with same duration of music being played would invariably be charged different amounts, based on the whims and fancies of these music licence companies.
4. Universe of music
Another issue is that music licence companies claim ownership of the entire 'universe' of music. When licences are being granted, a list of the music which is owned or administered by these bodies is not provided. They grant licence for playing any music ever composed, whether published or unpublished, recorded or unrecorded, etc., and provide a blanket licence granting permission to play music. This is similar to an association of tea manufacturers getting together and saying that each time someone sips a cup of tea anywhere in the country, they need to pay them something.
5. Double, triple licencing
The extent of the exploitation by music companies is so much that there are times when during the same event, double or even triple licences are levied. For example, when a hotel takes the licence from PPL to play music in its premises, using a DJ who has paid a fee and taken a yearly license for playing music, a separate licence is asked to be taken - even if it is the same DJ and the same hotel. The extent of exploitation is so much that for a DJ who costs events managers Rs 5,000-10,000, including sound and lights system, Rs 25,000 has to be shelled out for one evening.
6. Use of force – threats
This has become a business and PPL has started threatening event managers, venues and clients using all means possible to intimidate them and get them to pay unreasonable sums of money demanded by them. They try to scare off all parties involved by sending 1,000-page notices to them. Even the police departments are forced to cooperate with them out of sheer ignorance of the subject. When there is a case pending before the High Court and the matter is being argued, they claim that injunctions have been obtained, and thus they mislead all parties involved in the matter. Most of the time, they are successful in extorting money from event organisers and clients by issuing these false and baseless threats which are backed by a high profile battery of lawyers on their payrolls."
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