Though music royalty has been a contentious issue for quite a while, some headway seems to have been made following the meeting called by the I&B Ministry between the music and radio industries along with the Registrar of Copyrights and Secretary, HRD, on December 12 to start a cumulative process for nationalising music royalties for radio.

The first step towards consensus of royalty between music industry and FM radio has been taken. Subho Ray, President, IAMAI; Bhushan Kumar, PPL IPL CEO, Big Music; Prashant Pandey, CEO, Radio Mirchi; Rahul Gupta, Head of AROI’s Music Royalty Committee; Uday Chawla, Secretary, AROI; Anand Chakravarthy, Senior Vice President - Marketing, Big FM; Harish Bhatia, Business Head, My FM, along with the Registrar of Copyrights and Secretary, HRD, attended the meeting.

AROI’s Rahul Gupta said, “The music industry and radio industry has a bit of difference on the royalty issues and it has been difficult for both sides to discuss the issues. There had been numerous attempts on the part of the radio industry. The I&B Ministry had called for a meeting to encourage both parties to talk rather than meet in court. It encourages an amicable solution and gets the parties on to the negotiating table. The Ministry got a perspective from the radio and music industries. The radio industry explained their issues related to unrealistic content costs, which the music industry expects us to pay. Resulting from this meeting, FICCI has offered to offer a forum for negotiations and talks between the two groups.”

Uday Chawla, Secretary, AROI, said, “We should shake hands so that both industries grow, and further meetings will happen.”