 Hari Bhatia is CEO co-founder of Radiovala Network which is actually curating music for more than 350 retail brands and going into a number of outlets and I'm sure he would talk about this but he sets the premise in terms of why music is so important in the retail experience today. Then we have Petal Chandok from Trust Legal Advocates and Consultants who's really going to put some lights on how music licensing and music rights is working and that's a gamut of information there but I think we try to cover key aspects on that front. We have Yuri who represents a rather CEO founder evangelist DJ monitor which is a globally pioneering tech platform which is into track identification and then rights monitoring. So he really brings in about how to monitor these tracks across venues or retail outlets and finally we have Sharad Puri, GM Jadurumaraj Juhu, thank you so much sir for having us and helping us with this conference. Please so could you just take your seats and we could really start. So without further ado and I'm sure we'd like to wrap up as much as we could and share as much information as we could. I'd like to start with Hari, you have you've been curating music through your tech platform for so many retailers and outlets. Let's first understand how is really music helping a retail experience of a customer? Is it so important and is there really, is it just passive listening and just entertainment quotient or is there really something that really helps customer in their buying experience? Thanks Amit. As the time shows we are already 12 minutes over time. Okay so let's start quickly. Having worked in music industry and retail industry as personal experience has been that music is a must-have for a retail environment. It's not good to have, it's a must-have. Why does it say so? There have been enough research which has shown that in a retail environment three things are very critical for any consumer. First is the product itself. Now people are coming in for that product in the store. Second is the music, the sound of that retail store. How does it sound when you enter into, does it resonate with the kind of product it is being sold or it is totally disarray as compared to the product. And third is the smell. If the store doesn't smell good, customers will walk out. Now music, any customer who is walking into a retail environment typically is coming from a chaos outside on the street. Parking, there's somebody is like, you know, it's raining and everything. Once you enter the store, the music has to calm you down. So, or it has to resonate, okay, if you are going in for a product which is, you know, kind of, you want to spend time, you want the music to help you out as well. In a recent research, in any retail experience, I think more than the shopping, the checkout is a pain point. You spend a lot of time in the queue. And that's when if you hear a pleasant music, you know, it, it enhances the experience. We work with now more than 350 retail brands across 15,000 odd retail stores. I think the brands typically want that if a customer is walking into a store in Bombay, or in Mumbai, or in Delhi, or in Kanpur, they should have a straight connect with the brand through the music. So it's not that, you know, a different kind of music are getting played in different retail stores of the same brand. So that's a key thing which a retailer expects from a service provider like us. Earlier, they used to just send out CDs, but there was no control or checkpoint if the store manager is playing the same sound or not. Because it was left to the decision of the store staff and the store manager. With service providers like us, you know, typically we ensure that there is nothing left at the store level to manage. Everything is managed from our end. And this solves two problems or pain points of the retailers. First is the music licensing. This control at a single point enhances the compliance with all the legal rights of what the brands have taken for the music. And because we give them real time dashboard on what is getting played at each of the store. So from a PPL or a regulator point of view also there is compliance of the music. So that's a pain point which we solve for the retailers. And second is the standardization. So if the brand resonates with the lounge music or Hindi music, we ensure that the same thing gets played and there's no piracy. And is it something that the brand defines of what is the music that works? Or you help them really curate this music depending on what the consumers are really. So we do our creative and content team sits with the brand manager and the CEOs and understand the profile of their customers and post that we design the whole playlist and the day part, like morning what kind of tempo of music, how it will pep up in the evening, depending on the brand and depending on the time of the day. That's just fantastic. And I think one point that Harry made while there is, while the importance of music across retailers really set there, but one important part he said about was licenses. And on that petal I would like to come to you and really understand what kind of, what are the rights and licenses required when you're using a playlist for a public usage. And I think there's always a lot of information, always a lot of confusion. We'd like to just explain us a little in a simpler terms, considering we are all, everybody's not really good understand the nitty gritties, but at least in layman terms what are these rights that you require when you're playing this music. So Samit, the fact that Harry was also sharing that when you are in a store or when you are in a public place, you play songs and of course you need licenses for that. So just to segregate that, one is when you are playing songs at home. And in that obviously you don't need any licenses. But the moment you play these songs in a public place, that is where you need licenses because that is being done for entertainment, that is being done and the one who's playing it will be commercially benefited out of it. So these licenses are very important. So right now if you look at the condition of licenses in the country, we have societies that are in place. We have PPL, which is Phonographic Performance Limited. We have ISRA, which is Indian Singers' Rights Society. This is a society which consists of all the singers, mostly all the singers. And then there is IPRS, which is Indian Performers' Rights Society, where all the performers like authors, writers, composers, they are part of it. So these are the societies who really claim licenses, license fees, as well as royalties from these third party platforms or whatever platform we are playing these musics from because they are the ones who essentially hold, I mean claim to hold these rights. But of course right now there is ambiguity because there are multiple societies and each artist claims that they have the right, but still there are litigations going on, there are music labels who claim that it's their rights. So what happens mostly is that at the end of the day everyone starts taking all kinds of licenses as an abundant caution because nobody wants to really cause any sort of, you know, detriment in one's program or etc. So in those situations what happens is you start spending more. So right now the licensing situation in the country is not very clear, even though there are societies in place, but I think people end up spending more because they just want to be little extra cautious. On that note I'd come to you Sharad and really first understanding how music is really helping you to create a culture and environment in a hotel industry, a hospitality industry like this, and also how are you handling the whole licensing part of the business? So I think in a hotel the one most important thing is the environment, the ambience that we create and it's all the five senses and music plays a large role and I will admit that music plays a large role in our food and beverage sales and if you would go to a lounge the music that is played in the lounge at 7 p.m. is different than at 11 p.m. and that just helps our food and beverage sale. So the other thing we also look at from music point of view, each area, each space will need different kind of music, time of the day, breakfast is different, lunch is different, dinner is different, what kind of a space we have. So we are very particular about what music is required, very unique, very specific needs as Harry mentioned as well. So your all-day cafe plays something else, your lobby would play something else, and how do you go about the curation for this? Is there like a team who really curates this? So we have people who curate this for us and at the end of it you know the hotel team along with myself and we would give a brief of how we would want it to be. So in Italian restaurant we would like to play something which is more Italian in an Indian restaurant of course Indian and based on again time of the day. So we do it ourselves, we do a lot of, we give a lot of direction ourselves but it's curated by somebody else of course. Okay and how do you work about the licensing, do you really approach the PPL or is there agencies that you really develop? Yeah so as you know we do everything, yeah I wish it was a little easier, but we do everything and I think one big part for a hotel is the events that we do and we want to be safe and all our guests want to be safe and we just put a caution to say you know if you're going to do this, if you're going to play this music, get this license, this license, this license and a lot of times the guests would say you know I don't want to call this headache, let me not play music. So I think I think it's a big deterrent and it really goes against the artist. At the end of it we also I think it's important that the artists get the new recognition at the end of it. Understood Yuri I'm going to come to you and before that I'll just ask Harry once again. Harry when it comes to these licenses how easy is it in terms of procurement of these licenses? Is it economical for a retail brand to really invest in this? Do they have concerns that no this is too expensive? How do you really tackle that and what are these? So I think the compliance over the last six, seven years since we started the service has improved. Earlier people were just making CDs and just sending it to their stores and you know if someone comes and then they will handle it at that time. But I think over the years at least the organized retailers they have started taking licenses. Today there is confusion in the market on what all licenses they need to take. So the retailers association of India is working very closely with the licensing agencies as well to educate the retailers on what licenses. Primarily today PPL licenses being taken by everyone. IPRS after the copyright act amendment has taken a claim as well on the same music which is getting played over there. But as Petal said there are legal cases pending for it. PPL has over the years put the rate card on the net so people are aware of what the rates are. There used to be delay in issuance of licenses now they are making it a digital license. So there is continuous improvement on how to engage and increase the compliance as Neeraj mentioned in the previous that the music industry market size is pretty small. But licenses and you know we have like almost 20 million retail outlets and right now the compliance may be happening in maybe 50,000 outlets. Okay. So to that extent there is a very long journey ahead but it's a huge market potential for everyone. Usually you take it depending on the songs you play or is it a blanket license how does that license go for a retail outlet. So typically it is as I said people take PPL license or a label license where PPL cover some 275 labels or music labels. So if you take PPL license you can play any song from their repertoire. Got it. And there is Norwex which is some 10 odd labels are with them so if you take Norwex license then only those 10 music labels but it's a kind of a blanket license you play any song from their repertoire. Sure. I think I'm going to come back to you in terms of understanding the economics of how you pay for this. But on that note Yuri I would like to come to you and understand how is DJ monitor really simplifying this issue in terms of monitoring as well as rights licensing. How do you really take that through with the platform tech that you have? Well maybe it's good to show the video first because Yuri has a video to be played console going to play the video. PPL and PRS for music play a vital role at the heart of the music industry ensuring music creators are paid fairly when their music is played in public. As the music industry evolves we're constantly innovating to adapt. Now working alongside bars clubs and events across the country is helping to improve the way that music creators are paid from performances in clubs. DJ sets a spontaneous and varied changing from gig to gig which can make it difficult for DJs to tell us what they play. This just sound started life nearly 30 years ago as a nightclub in Elephant Castle in South London so we are wholly supportive of music recognition technology going into bars and clubs so that the right people get paid. A small recognition device listens to the music a DJ plays and analyzes it against a database of millions of individual sound recordings. Creating highly accurate setlist information PPL and PRS for music then use this setlist information to distribute royalties back to the creators of those recordings and works. Devices are installed quickly and securely by our qualified audio engineer at no cost to the venue or event promoter and can be adapted to accommodate almost all technical specifications. I'm Beatrates I am a music producer DJ and radio presenter I play mostly underground dance music so we need to use more technical breaks jungle but I am a very eclectic artist and very eclectic taste so it's really really important for clubs to start backing this kind of thing. From a DJ's point of view music recognition technology is completely private and secure. The information captured will never be made public it's only going to be used to pay those artists whose music you've played. We've released music for 20 years now so we have an extensive catalog I hear my records in bars boutiques nightclubs so every time my music gets played there should be some kind of return or the remuneration for that because the people that create the music deserve to get paid I mean it's an art form music it's a creative process and you should be paid for creativity so music recognition technology enables us to track all of the plays. The music comes first every time. Sorry I thought that Pete Tong could narrate it a lot better than I can. Basically this is what we are doing in the UK for PRS for music and PPL and we're doing a big variation of venues ranging from pubs ranging from pubs to events to nightclubs like ministry of sound fabric etc so we tried to get the full picture here. Our product is very simple through technology we are able to create data and through data we are able to create transparency and transparency is what's needed in order to create a fair licensing tariff as well as the correct distribution towards the rightful artists and composers. And just in terms of understanding while the rights and PPL really put some insight in terms of rights how it's handling in India but just your understanding in terms of how are they being handled internationally in probably UK or US in the markets that you're working on? Well US works a little bit different than other markets but in generally speaking you have author rights and author rights are usually the rights that go to the composers and lyricists they write the music a good example is if the author of New York New York wrote their songs and then a whole bunch of people covered it like Frank Sinatra etc meaning that Frank Sinatra is an artist hey in this case we have the neighboring rights because the neighboring rights then go to the artist and record labels etc so the actual performance and then there's something called master rights and the master rights are the rights of the the entity that owns the master usually the record label and the record labels come together and they have founded this platform IFPI and sorry and IFPI basically has their music represented as neighboring rights through entities like PPL. So anytime you play music you have to pay both the writers the composers you have to pay the artists and record labels and yeah so that's something that a lot of people mix up you cannot not pay the writers and only pay the performers that's not possible. Right and I think on that note Harry I'd come back to you in terms of the confusion of and we all understand it as master rights because we're playing a CD or a streaming a song what as far as I know one is PPL who really collects that license but IPRS has now come back and said that okay we have the rights on the composition of the track and then there's now Isra is that really creating a confusion here in terms of and how is one handling that is there anything that you've really seen development in that case? No definitely as a retailers or any place where the public performance kind of music gets played so there is a confusion amongst them that who all they have to pay. Historically it has been always PPL which has been charging and everyone has been paying and IPRS was not registered under the Copyright Act which has been done recently. The question the retailers are today asking if I was paying hundred and now there are two three agencies which are claiming and the rights are there so there is legally IPRS has a claim on the rights now the question is whether it becomes hundred plus plus plus or that hundred gets divided amongst the agencies so that's the confusion which is still prevalent and it is still under various courts are hearing these matters so till the time that gets resolved I think there is confusion in the market on who all have right to claim. There's something else that I would like to add to that there's something called reciprocal rights meaning that if you are a member of CSAC and IPRS was kicked out of CSAC recently was readmitted to CSAC at that moment they are allowed to represent the rights of the rest of the world basically all the other PROs who are a member of CSAC then grant their permission that IPRS does not just represent their own repertoire but they also represent what we call the world repertoire. Oh interesting and I think one of the insight that I and I was reading about is one is the confusion Hari that you're talking about and second is between IPRS and PPL the total collection from the music licensing particularly from a retail business is around upwards or approximately 100 crores and but the important insight there is it's only coming out of a less than 5% penetration in this retail market and I think that means 95% of the times we don't know if our if the right owners don't know if the song is actually being played in that in in a retail outlet and on that note I'd like to again come back to you in terms of understanding in this era where a where a song is available on your on your phone and I could be a retailer sitting a mobile a mobile retail outlet sitting out of Raipur has a streaming platform that I would and I could play that music and you know in my store is that legally right and how I know that's not but how is one supposed to really handle those things because that's the kind of penetration that's still not happened in this country and how is one working towards helping that out so Samit like you said of course if a retailer is playing a song in his store which is obviously for his consumers and customers it's not legally allowed so it is something if you're doing it without license then it is something which is illegal at the same time what you're trying to also a pinpoint is that how do we really sort of control that the unfortunate part is that you really can't control it right now how it's happening is is through physical raids you know these societies also carry out raids at these outlets and premises where these songs are played and then they that is how they basically you know catch these infringements that are happening of their copyright it works but as of now electronically or a easier way to find out or something which can control it or prevent it unfortunately we don't have it as of now but yes like Harry said there's a long way to go and maybe in the coming future there are softwares that we can you know come up with but at the moment there is nothing okay but to just to add on that there is something in the sense that when we provide service we work very closely with even the regulators on that point of view because when we deliver those service digitally today we have full log track record of which store in the country or anywhere in the world has played what track at what time so all the logs we maintain at our end so tomorrow if any music label wants to know okay what kind of music is getting played and that's where the whole technology shift is happening that earlier we used to send CDs and you know you take a blanket license but today I can track down to a single artist single the song or the label how many times it was played in a store what time it was played we have all the logs so that's where we are I think working on where in the transparency in the whole ecosystem will come into play as well so basically if we have service providers like that then yes maybe we can prevent but I mean that's that's where we're looking at that there's a long way okay and Harry on that that do brands believe is it is it a cost or is it really something that they believe is working for them how do they really come across when you give them a budget okay this much is is going to be the license cost but they really see it as a cost as they really see it as investment into something building customer experience so as I mentioned brands at least the organized retail companies a large companies they treat it as part of their doing a business it's not seen as a large cost item large cost item when it becomes when multiple agencies start claiming on top of that then they start thinking of whether it is you know how do you take care of this cost sure today the cost is being levied on the basis of say per square foot of a retail environment okay and then whether you are an Indian brand or a foreign brand whether you are a multi store or so there are various permutation combinations got it and I think once that is simplified and the rates are rationalized like today the stores are each brand is a million square foot you start multiplying the exact rack rates that goes into crores right today every retailer is trying to working on you know very thin margin so they want to comply but these kind of then negotiations happen with the PPL and IPRS and they handle it directly right but we ensure that whenever we are servicing a customer that the music is licensed so the compliance increases and actually brands don't mind paying if that if that amount is going to the artist because finally they're playing that track on that I think that acceptance is coming in yeah it is drill down to the single store and mom and pop show stores that I think is still it will take some time but organized retail top end all take licenses okay they are complying with the regulations to that extra okay I started pitching on that yeah is that cost is actually one is it's the cost of doing business and it just is we're not experts at it number one right and that's why you know it it just helps to let somebody else let an expert do that and we just have less a liability then you know it just says no liability on me that I'm not doing something right so that way I think it's it's a cost worth as a business I feel it's a cost worth giving into and submit just to add on now we are not just playing music as you know as a service provider I'm just curating music so we are branding the music channel as hey you are listening to lifestyle radio hey you are listening to titan radio so there is a brand connect after every song after two songs there is a brand connect happening with the consumers on the floor and then they announce about their product launches so they are using this medium along with music music as the product knowledge distribution as well and I think that's that's the same trend happening when it comes to even live experiences which I'm a part of you know brands like Red Bull or Budweiser the Red Bull has been doing RBM a music academy for years I know it has a new avatar now but they're trying to build a culture around it and probably they're going to be showcasing a film that they've done on a documentary that they've done on divine during this conference similarly Budweiser internationally investing into investing in festivals and music concerts really believing and that's a research a clear research that says 63 or 63 percent of the audience that really attend festivals and concerts or other music concerts connect with the brands who really sponsor those events and that's a great insight for any brand to really have in and that's why I think brands are creating culture around this but what's more important is transparency that when you're creating this culture when you're actually playing this music the final you know the rights and the licensing and the amount has to go to the final artist and that transparency is quite important to really build in and I think that I would keep it as the last conversation between us because we've just finishing a conversation Yuri on that front how do we build this transparency and I I had one idea while we're discussing that if really today if there is any outlet and today BMC or anybody who gives the permission for a for a venue or an outlet or a retail outlet if they really make this important for anybody to have a monitoring system like a DJ monitor so we actually every all these retail outlets we would get to and you would be able to monitor that would create some kind of a transparency in the whole you know music retail business is there something like this happening internationally and is that you guys are working on well basically we work with the PROS performance rights organizations in New Zealand in Australia in the USA in Germany UK France Belgium Netherlands etc so this is internationally accepted we've really set our sights now on on India because I think that this market needs to be clear on what it is that they're actually paying for and I think that through MRT we can create data and through data we can create transparency once again so and it should be it should go both ways this is what we do in Europe as well we work both for the the transparency of distribution towards the artists and and rights owners authors etc but we also work for transparency towards venues and events meaning that our efforts have led up to legislation actually in Europe where for instance a judge has made rulings in Belgium based on the work that we've done with entities like Tomorrowland etc in which basically the judge said well listen you cannot charge a hundred percent if you do not represent a hundred percent and through our data we could see like oh they only represent 67 percent therefore it you know it's now obliged to cut it into smaller tranches of let's say 70 70 percent so they only have to pay 70 percent of that fee instead of 100 percent so I think that transparency should work both ways I think that transparency Harry would really bring our costs also down with retailers if we really have the information on the tracks being played and then actual we could pay instead of paying for the blanket which we at times you would be only using 40 50 percent of the repertoire and if you could really understand that this is the track being played and that monitoring system could really make it more transparent for all all of us and really help the whole licensing concern that's coming up on that note I think do we have time for queene right do we have time for queene okay no problem so no okay so thank you so much guys thank you so much uh panelists and thank you for hearing us out while we had lots to talk and a lot of other conversations points to bring in but we are running short of time so thank you so much and enjoy the rest of the day