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FM
Broadcasters object to IPRS's actions
FM
radio channels are being threatened with action by the Indian
Performing Rights Society (IPRS), for non-payment of license fees
to IPRS. The FM channel owners have on the other hand been making
the necessary payment to Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL),
which is another collecting society.
In
India, collecting societies are registered under Section 33 of
the Copyright Act, 1957 to administer rights that copyright owners
have in their works. Also, as per Section 33(3) of the Copyright
Act, the Central Government will not ordinarily register more
than one copyright society to do business in respect of the same
class of works.
In respect of the Indian music industry, there are currently two
established collecting societies, PPL and IPRS. PPL is known to
represent music companies/record companies who hold rights in
sound recordings while IPRS is recognized as representing authors
of lyrics and composers of music. Further, PPL represents the
class of copyright works that are "sound recordings" while
IPRS claims that it represents the class of works, which are "musical
works." The aforesaid information is provided on the websites
of PPL and IPRS, which are http://www.pplindia.org/aboutus.html
and http://www.indiavibes.com/iprs/
respectively.
'Inspite
of the above distinctions, there still remain some grey areas
as to the requirements to pay license fee to both PPL and IPRS
in relation to certain modes of exploitation of rights. As a result,
there have been instances of deadlock between users of music and
collecting societies.
There
appears to be some merit in the stand taken by FM radio since
it could be argued that FM radio is merely using the rights in
the sound recording and therefore has secured the necessary license
from PPL. However, the ambiguity that remains is whether by merely
obtaining a license from PPL to use the sound recording the FM
companies have comprehensively covered all the rights and licenses
that they are required to take for the broadcast of the music
from the sound recordings. Also, due to lack of clarity on the
aforesaid issues, if license fee is paid to both PPL and IPRS
there is a possibility that the same the authors and composers
are being paid twice, i.e. by the sound recording producers and
by the music users.
While
the government is the licensor of the FM radio channels it has
not provided clarity to the radio channel owners as to the entity
from which the channel owners should obtain copyright licenses.
In the context of the above situation, the radio channel owners
intend to approach the Copyright Board for a hearing on these
issues. However, as the Copyright Board does not often convene
there is unlikely to be a speedy resolution of this matter.
This
confusion and overlap could have been avoided by back-to-back
arrangement between PPL and IPRS. It may also be helpful to look
into the practices and arrangements of collecting societies in
other jurisdictions who may have devised ways to avoid overlap
in scope of functions of collecting societies.
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You
can direct your queries or comments to the authors
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Source:
The Times of India article dated April 23, 2006
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