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Latha Venkatraman

Mumbai , April 14

LAST week two leading political parties launched cassettes and CDs of their campaign songs in Mumbai. The tunes of most of the songs were based on popular Indipop and Hindi film songs. Predictably, both the parties have used the tune of Aika Dajiba, a hugely popular and a highly hummable number.

For political parties it may be a tactic to appeal to its mass of voters but what is in it for music companies? The biggest rue of the Indian music industry is that the rising popularity of any album spells doom for the music companies as it strips the album of its full potential - a case of overkill.

The music industry, which is yet to recover from the huge losses it incurred in 2002, is grappling with a much bigger issue of piracy. The issue of licensing music, therefore, takes a back seat.

According to Mr V.J. Lazarus, President, Indian Music Industry (IMI), any use of recorded music or tunes of recorded music publicly must be on payment of a royalty to the either Public Performance Limited (PPL) or Indian Performance Right Society (IPRS).

It could be a political party using a popular tune, a hotel playing recorded songs, a live event with recorded music, re-records of old songs or even remixes - all of these need to pay royalty. One of the political parties, when contacted, said it had sought all the approvals for using the tunes.

According to music companies, copyright violations are aplenty. "Until recently, the music industry looked at these uses as promotion but soon realised that it was killing the industry,'' said a representative of the industry.

But the industry is losing out to a much greater extent to pirates. The Indian music industry recorded huge declines in revenues in 2002 but in 2003 it was able to stabilise at Rs 1,040 crore, according to an estimate by Ernst & Young. It put the global music industry's decline in 2003 at nine per cent at $28.2 billion.

Piracy has taken on a new dimension with newer technologies, according to Ms Nina Engineer. She works with Mr Julio Ribeiro, former police commissioner of Mumbai Police, on music piracy crackdown.

During 2003, the music industry saw an increase in the growth of the burnt CD piracy, a FICCI-Ernst & Young study said. Law firm Amarchand Mangaldas had suggested changes in law as well as awareness programmes to combat piracy. The widespread use of MP3, and the easy availability and affordability of CD writers have given a further impetus to piracy.

The law firm had also suggested that amendments to the existing provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957 are essential to make enforcement stricter and remove existing loopholes in the Act, which allows acts of piracy. One of the proposals suggested then was to frame optical disc regulations under which manufacturers and replicators of CD media are statutorily required to be licensed and registered and made to use codes.

Technological advances have also made it difficult to go after pirates as piracy operates in a much more fragmented manner now than earlier. Nevertheless, IMI's anti-piracy campaign has resulted in recording on an average 150 cases across the country every month, says Mr Savio D'Souza, Secretary General, IMI.

There have been many convictions but there have been instances when cases have taken a longer time in courts, said Ms Engineer.

More Stories on : Piracy | Music & Dance

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