FHRAI will reply to the court’s interim injunction on Jan 25.
The ongoing tussle between the music and hospitality industries will continue on January 25 in Delhi. This is the court appointed date when the FHRAI will reply to the Delhi High Court’s injunction against the FHRAI’s members advisory against PPL’s royalty claims over last year’s Christmas & New Year season.
The court has restrained the FHRAI from issuing advisories to its members not to approach PPL, which holds copyrights for lakhs of numbers, for the rights to play popular Bollywood songs during the year-ending celebrations.
Justice Hima Kohli issued the direction on PPL’s plea which claims to have copyright for about five lakh sound recordings of over 250 record labels, including T-series, Universal and Sony music.
PPL told the court that the FHRAI & its Secretary General, Amitabh Devendra were issuing advisories to members across the country not to approach PPL for licence to “communicate to the public” those sound recordings in which the company holds copyright. It claimed that the issuance of such advisories could lead to infringement of its copyright in these sound recordings.
Read: FHRAI’s letter to its members
Also Read: NRAI’s letters to PPL, IPRS & Novex, Bengaluru’s run-in with PPL’s ‘lawful’ notice
PPL had initially moved the lower court for an injunction against the advisories issued by FHRAI regarding taking licence from the company, which the court refused to grant.
Against this refusal, PPL moved the High Court, which issued its notice to the FHRAI and its Secretary General seeking their replies by January 25, the next date of hearing.
