Beware! Music cops are on patrol

With normalcy restored in its house, The Indian Performance Right Society Ltd (IPRS) is now contemplating to drag All India Radio (AIR), Doordharshan (DD) and other private satellite channels to court. "We have sent letters to AIR, DD, Sun and Raj TV channnels demanding payment of royalties for their music-based programmes," disclosed Sanjay Tandon, director general, IPRS.

IPRS says it has a strong case against AIR, as all the private FM channels have been licensed by it. "Further, when AIR has been paying for broadcasting non-Indian music, why not for Indian music as well, since that would benefit the Indians," Tandon poses.

Thanks to the lack of copyright awareness amongst the Indian music owners and the problems that plagued IPRS till some years back, AIR continued to escape the net. "We don't expect a court injunction against AIR. What we hope to get is a good judgement as non-payment of licence fee is against the TRIPS agreement," he says.

With regard to private television channels, the society has one more problem to surmount. And that is: the claim can be made only in the country where the channel's uplinking facility is located. "Zee TV is paying the fee to our affiliate in Hong Kong as its uplinking facility is situated there," informs Tandon.

Referring to the case filed by Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Association of India (FHRAI) in the Delhi High Court last May against his organisation and the Centre questioning certain provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957, Tandon says, "They are asking for the moon by challenging the very basis of the Act." To support his view, he cites the apex court's judgement in an earlier case filed by FHRAI wherein IPRS was allowed to collect the revised tariff rates from hotels and restaurants.

According to him, during December 1997, FHRAI filed a complaint before the MRTP Commission against the revised tariff of IPRS and secured an ad-interim ex-parte order restraining the latter from charging its revised rates till April 21, 1998. IPRS argued its case effectively before the Commission and the so that the stay was not extended beyond that date. And on August 3, 1998, the Supreme Court protected the interest of IPRS and vacated the Commission's stay order.

The judgement is encouraging for the collective administration of intellectual property rights in India, Tandon says. The Society is now educating establishments like banks, hotels, IAAI, railways, restaurants and Internet music sites on the importance of obtaining a licence before playing any music. IPRS recently issued its first licence to an Internet music site for Rs.8.5 lakh.

Role of IPRS

And exactly what is this IPRS all about? And what is collective administration of intellectual property rights? The Mumbai-headquartered IPRS is a 30-year-old company limited by guarantee. The company is registered as a Copyright Society under Section 33 of Copyright Act 1957, to carry on the copyright business in musical works/any words or action intended to be sung, spoken or performed with music.

Simply put, the primary task of IPRS is licensing music users for public performance of music for a fee/royalty on behalf of its members. The royalty collected will be distributed amongst its members, constituting music composers, lyrists and sound recording companies or their legal heirs. According to Tandon's estimates, 97 per cent of Indian musical work is now under IPRS' fold.

Basically, the society derives its power from the assignment, made in its favour by its members of their past, present and future rights in respect with their musical works. And as per Section 14(a)(iii) of the Copyright Act, the owner of a musical work has the exclusive right to perform or communicate his musical work to the public, or authorise any other person to do so.

Alternatively, any person who performs music in public or communicates that music to the public by whatever means -- live or recorded -- requires the owner's permission. It is this right which is being assigned to IPRS by music owners for administration. According to Tandon, the society has listed about 41 categories that have to obtain its licence before playing any music. The list includes even wedding receptions, if there is to be a music show -- whether played by a troupe or on a cassette recorder -- to entertain the guests.

The licence

The licencing procedure is very simple, says Tandon. "All that one has to do is to pay by one cheque annually, and use whatever music we own." The licence fee is based on the purpose of use and is calculated in a scientific manner, he adds. For instance, in the case of live music shows, the tariff is based on the seating capacity and the ticket prices. And example: In Chennai, the organisers of a live music show of Tamil music director Deva, paid IPRS Rs 50,000 as licence fee.

"In case of hotels, the rate is Re 1 per room, per day, and if it is a restaurant, the tariff is pegged on the least priced item stated in the menu card. For departmental stores, our rate is based on the square footage," Tandon explains.

IPRS’s performance

Last year, IPRS's royalty collections was Rs 4.5 crore, out of which Rs 4 crore was distributed amongst its members. It had been a long haul for the society, which distributed just Rs 900 to five of its members way back in 1973. Much of the credit for such growth should be given to late music director, M.B. Srinivasan, and Tandon. While it was Srinivasan who brought the authors and composers to run the society, Tandon infused professionalism in its functioning.

A chartered accountant who also holds a law degree, Tandon, listening to his heart rather than his mind, quit as a partner of a 40-year-old accountancy firm to join IPRS in 1991. "When I came in, the total collection was just Rs 10 lakh," he recalls.

Tandon was instrumental in convincing the Centre on the need to amend the Copyright Act in 1994, to vest all rights regarding a musical work with the owner. Armed with the amendment, he first started reasoning with music users to pay up. Only when that failed, this `music policeman' would wield his stick. Some of the prominent names which buckled under his stick are ABCL, for its pageant show in Bangalore; and organisers of Mahduri Dixit's music programme in Calcutta.

The handicaps

"Currently we're tapping just two per cent of the potential," says Tandon. The music industry’s size is estimated at Rs 300 crore (sales). Towards increasing IPRS' collection, Tandon is making concerted efforts city by city. After reasonably covering Mumbai, where kitty parties were licenced, IPRS is now focussing on Chennai and Calcutta.

One of the handicaps with which Tandon has to work is inadequate staff strength to do the policing work. "Our cost ratio is fixed at 15 per cent by the Copyright Act and we have to manage within that," he complains. As staff strength is limited, the Society also hires third parties for investigation work.

Policing is the difficult part of the job in a country where people take everything for granted. There have been instances where IPRS investigators were threatened by violators and put behind the bars by the police. "As a result, we decided to brief the police as to what copyright violation is and our lawful duty to prevent that. Today the law enforcers are aware of us," Tandon says.

The present focus is to widen the collection base. One such target is Internet music sites. "As per my estimates, there are about 3.5 lakh Internet sites having Indian music. Even if I am able to licence 50,000, the revenue would grow manifold," remarks Tandon.

The royalty advantage

With benefits percolating at the artists levels, there is large awakening about copyrights amongst them. Says music director Shyam, "I can't call this a pension in the strict sense. But I will be getting the fruits of my labour for the next 10 years. And that is a great feeling."

According to Tandon, the minimum royalty paid by IPRS to a member last year was Rs 850. On the higher side, Anu Malik got Rs 15 lakh, followed by A.R. Rehaman. With reciprocal agreements signed with similar organisations abroad, Tandon hopes to increase the society's collections further.

For the current fiscal the target collection is Rs 7 crore, and double that the next year.