The Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL), a copyright society engaged in licensing recording copyrights, has moved the Bombay High Court seeking a stay on the playing of copyrighted music without permission, by several premium hotels on New Year's Eve.

In its petitions, the apex licensing body has listed the names of 17 hotels, including the JW Marriott, the Taj Group, Marine Centre and the Leela Kempenski. The petitions seek to restrain the hotels from playing music and sound recordings of more than 200 of PPL's members during the New Year events and shows, if they don't have a license from PPL.

PPL administers copyrights on behalf of about 137 recording companies, including HMV (Sa Re Ga Ma India), Tips, Universal, Venus, Sony Music, Magnasound, BMG Crescendo, Virgin, Milestone and Times Music.

PPL's petition claims, "They cannot be allowed to commit infringement of copyright by playing sound recordings in an unauthorised manner without paying royalty to our members. The defendants are obliged to pay royalty and obtain mandatory licenses before organizing events in which they use and exploit sound recordings of our members."

Senior Partner Shekar Mennon from MediaLexicon, who, along with Associate Sonia Sharma, represented PPL before the Single Judge, said, "The Bombay High Court is on vacation and therefore Justice K. K. Tated did not sense any urgency in this matter and has not granted any interim reliefs to PPL." Speaking to Bar & Bench, Shekar Mennon said, "We will be moving an appeal before the division bench today."

PPL has been consistently filing copyright infringement cases against various entities including hotels, FM channels, retail stores, resorts and media houses. Bilawala & Co., a Bombay-based law firm, has also represented PPL in various other infringement matters. PPL has been battling the Mumbai hotels on the subject of New Year bashes for several years now, but the Mumbai High Court has not yet handed down a conclusive judgment on the matter.