Music cos masked dues as assets, finds ED

The Enforcement Directorate (ED), probing the case of non-payment of royalty to musicians and artistes, conducted searches at the premises of two more companies in Mumbai and found that a few of them allegedly camouflaged the dues owed by them to artistes as their company's assets.

According to the ED officials, searches were conducted at the premises of Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) and Select Media Holdings Private Limited (SMHPL) in connection with the case. The agency also recorded the statement of PPL's chief operating officer on Wednesday.

PPL and SMHPL were to pass on the collected royalty to the Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) who had given them the rights of collecting the royalty. During the raid, ED found a rate card of 30,000 establishments like malls, hotels, bars and restaurants to whom the companies had provided licenses for playing music in return of royalty. "Few music companies had altered their books to mask the outstanding dues and shown it as their company's asset instead of liability. After collecting the royalties from consumers they did not pass it on to the IPRS," said an ED official. "We have now sought their bank account details. 

According to our preliminary probe, it seems that from 2008 to 2013, royalties were collected by PPL and SMHPL but were not passed on to IPRS and subsequently did not reach the artistes," said another official.