MUMBAI: There's change afoot in the Indian music industry. Quietly and almost unnoticed, a new organization has cropped up to licence and collect fees from the various telcos and streaming services. Called the Phonographic Digital Ltd (PDL) it was incorporated in March 2017, just as the financial year was coming to a close, with its registered office in Kolkata.

Earlier, the Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL), which was headed by Vipul Pradhan as its CEO, was mandated to assign licences on behalf of its Indian label members to the various telecom operators like Airtel, JioMusic, Idea, Vodafone, and streaming services and collect royalties from them.

According to corporate filings, PDL has six directors -- Sovan Lal Saha, Atul Prasad Churamani, Mandar Ramesh Thakur, Durgaram Kanaram Choudhary, Sajjan Kumar and Dewal Prashar. Pradhan is slated to continue as CEO with Saha wearing the hat of PDL chairman.

The PPL will continue as in the past to be a collection organization for public performance of sound recordings from establishments, events and radio.