MUMBAI: Organisers of Bangalore Fashion Week, Dream Merchants have come under the Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) scanner for not paying requisite license fee for the music that was used during their shows between 23 and 26 July.

PPL, the apex licensing arm of the Indian music industry, has lodged a complaint with the Bangalore Police against Dream Merchants, the event managers of Blenders Pride Bangalore Fashion Week, and Hotel Ottera where the event was held, for violating the Copyright Act, 1957.

"The violation amounts to infringement of copyright as described in Section 51 of the Copyright Act. We have decided to resolve it in the court of law," says PPL National sales head Sowmya Chaudhary.

We have sued the event organizers as well as the hotel where the event was being organised for not checking the license prior to the event. The organising authorities of the event had assured us in written about the payment of the fee before the start of the event but they declined later. A criminal complaint has been filed against them,... says Chaudhary.

They cannot toy around with the law of the land. They will be blacklisted if they refuse to pay the required amount. We will closely monitor these activities across India....

Dream Merchants however deny the allegations and have a different story to put forward. Feroz Khan, one of the partners of the company, explains their side of the story, We had contacted them prior to the show through mails to confirm the requisite amount. We had even sent a fax to the Kolkata office to pick up a cheque of Rs1,50,000 and to hand over the no objection certificate. We did not hear from them till four days before the show when different people called us from different offices demanding a sum of money which was not acceptable....

The tariff for paying the license is calculated based on the number of hours the music is to be played and the number of people expected for the event.

The organisers will be tried under Section 63 and 64 which describes the nature of the offence, procedure of trial and quantum of punishment.

Khan says, We had all the requisite licenses from the police. We are ready to pay the price but there is no set standard price. They are only arm-twisting us to extract money. We will file a lawsuit against them if they try to defame us....

"We have the required evidence to prove the violation. We are sure they will not be allowed to organise any event till they pay their fees with the fine," concludes Chaudhary.