The future of music business: Rajat Kakar gives us his vision, as the new COO of PPL

Rajat Kakar, the new COO Of PPL, speaks with Indulge, to give us his vision and goal for PPL, and the music business.
Rajat Kakar
Rajat Kakar

The Indian Phonographic Industry (IPI), the Association of Phonogram Producers, was established in 1936, and it was instrumental in finalising the Broadcasting Licence arrangement in India. Subsequently, IPI members decided to form a specialised body to administer their Public Performance and Broadcasting Rights, and so PPL came into being in 1941. Rajat Kakar, the new COO Of PPL, speaks with Indulge, to give us his vision and goal for PPL, and the music business.

You have a vast experience in the music space and now you have joined PPL. What is your vision
and goal for PPL?

I joined PPL with a clear mandate to make it a professional and transparent organization working to enhance value for its members and offering hassle free licensing for users. Transparency in licensing, practices, our governance, our distribution of money is extremely important and I think that is one of
the key criteria that is the hallmark of a well run collective rights management organization. Need of the hour is also to run it like a professional company.

The idea is to make the process of obtaining a PPL license - easier, quicker and friendlier for users of our Sound Recordings for either Background usage or for Events. Simple example of background usage is playing music in retail stores. We also want people to understand what we do and explain that that we are a collective rights management organization that works to simplify licensing of our members works and ensure the same is paid back to the labels, as per usage. In the course of this licensing we take all steps to protect rights, given to us by the Record Labels as per their mandates, from copyright infringement of any kind as is stipulated in the law.

If you can share some of changes which have come about after you joined PPL?

I joined PPL on 1 st January 2018 and immediately started to put the right team in place. We revamped
our entire management team and made a lot of new hiring’s, so there is a new Head of Licensing, Chief
Digital Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Besides this, we have let go of certain people, whose caliber
was not up to the mark. Going forward we are keen to hire people from different walks of life, who can contribute and add to the talent pool at PPL.

We are actively looking for people who can bring on-board skills of sales and marketing, B2B business, data analytics etc. which will help us reaching out to potential licensees. We have also appointed the best of auditors (internal and external), who will advise us on best practices. This is to establish that we are imbibing the best business processes with the stamp of approval from the best in the business. We are in the process of revamping our constitution, which are the Articles of Association so that we are in touch with the times we are living in. There will be an AGM held soon on the same.

How is PPL increasing their communication footprint with both - old media & new media?

We are building a digital team to keep pace with the changing times. The process of obtaining a Sound recording license will soon be online and will be followed by a communication campaign across the
board including social media. Once set up we will be fast and seamless. The transparency agenda will be visible to all with simplified tariffs and easy to access licensing and online payment options which should bring a large number of legitimate users into the licensing fold.

Social media will also help us to get on-ground feedback. We are partnering with Wizspk PR and Communication, to assist us in spreading news of the steps we are taking in our journey to expand new frontiers and will help us engage with both the trade associations as well as the users. So now, there is a lot of information exchange and new development updates which are being actively shared on a regular basis.

How does PPL tracks music which gets played at events?

Events using sound recordings is a very large business in India. Currently people are taking licenses because when an event is held in a respectable venue, the venue itself asks the party to take a PPL license given it would be an infringement if this was not done. However a large proportion of users are currently not taking a license either due to ignorance, the tedious process involved, or the complicated tariffs or just pure disrespect for the creative fraternity.

This will hopefully change with the initiatives we are undertaking. In addition to this we are alsotrying to use social media to know where our music is is being used. There are digital companies that can track information by using artificial intelligence and informing us that ‘in a particular establishment at so and so time your music has been used’. Using technology is the only way forward. We will be massively investing in information tagging mechanisms the coming years.

Congratulation to PPL on renewing with T-Series again. Kindly share more on this.

T-Series and PPL have been associated for over a decade now. The leading music label company has again come onboard with PPL in an exclusive arrangement which means the bouquet of all of T-series
songs will be under the PPL umbrella. This is a vindication of the positive change agenda that we are
pursuing at PPL. This ensures that the lions share of party songs is now under PPL. In addition to this PPL also is the official licensing body for players like Saregama, Sony Music, Universal Music, Venus, Aditya, Lahari Music etc.

Has Mr Bhushan Kumar joined PPL Board?

Yes, Mr Bhushan Kumar has joined the PPL board of directors. We are truly elated to have him onboard
and are convinced that his presence will help PPL scale further heights in the years to come.

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