No Licence, No Performance: Bombay High Court Restrains Restaurants from Playing Music

Introduction

Most restaurants in India play music. A playlist runs through a speaker system, a television screens a music channel, a DJ works a Friday night crowd. The operators who run these establishments rarely think of this as a legal act. The music is in the background and it builds the atmosphere. It is, in their understanding, simply part of running a hospitality business.

The Bombay High Court's order in Phonographic Performance Limited v. Trinetra Venture and Ors. establishes that this understanding has always been wrong. Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh, in an interim order granted on December 24, 2025, restrained two restaurant operators running approximately 94 outlets across India from publicly playing or communicating any sound recording from PPL's repertoire without first obtaining a valid public performance licence. The court found PPL's case of infringement prima facie established, found no legal entitlement in the defendants to use the sound recordings, and found the balance of convenience firmly in PPL's favour given the scale of the operations and the risk of ongoing, repeated infringement across a large number of establishments.

The order is an interim injunction, not a final decree, and the suit remains pending on the merits. The legal principles it applies, however, are settled doctrine, and the practical obligations it imposes on every restaurant, café, hotel, event space, and public entertainment venue in India have existed in the Copyright Act, 1957 since long before.

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Issues

Three distinct questions arose before the court, each of which the defendants raised in opposition to PPL's application for interim relief.

Whether publicly playing sound recordings in a restaurant or commercial establishment constitutes an act requiring a licence from the copyright owner or exclusive licensee?
Whether PPL, as an entity that holds rights through assignment deeds and exclusive licensing agreements with music labels, could enforce those rights and demand licence fees without being registered as a copyright society under Section 33(1) of the Copyright Act?
Whether PPL's suit was maintainable at all, given that the original copyright owners had not been joined as parties, as Section 61 of the Copyright Act requires?

The Doctrine

What the Copyright Act Says About Public Performance

Section 14(1)(e) of the Copyright Act, 1957 gives the owner of copyright in a sound recording the exclusive right to communicate the work to the public. Section 2(ff) defines "communication to the public" as making the work available by any means of display, broadcast, or performance, whether simultaneously or at different points in time, such that persons not present at the place where the work originates can access it. Hence, any means of making a sound recording available to an audience beyond the immediate physical location of the person playing it constitutes communication to the public under this provision.

When a restaurant plays a recorded song over its speakers, the sound recording reaches every customer in the establishment, none of whom are at the location where the recording originated. Every such act of playback constitutes a communication to the public within the meaning of Section 2(ff), and every such act requires the authorisation of the copyright owner.

Section 51 of the Copyright Act states that copyright in a work is infringed when any person, without a licence from the owner or without the authority of the Act, does anything that only the owner has the exclusive right to do. Playing a sound recording in a public commercial space without a licence from the owner or authorised licensor is a direct act of infringement under this provision. The defence that the music was ambient, incidental, or merely atmospheric holds no place in the copyright framework.

Copyright Societies, Owners, and Exclusive Licensees

Section 33(1) of the Copyright Act prohibits any person or association of persons from carrying on the business of issuing or granting licences in respect of any copyrighted work, or in respect of the performance rights in such work, unless that person or association registers as a copyright society. The provision exists to regulate collective management of copyright and to prevent unorganised or exploitative licensing practices.

Section 30 of the Copyright Act, however, separately enables the owner of copyright in a work, or an authorised agent of the owner, to grant licences authorising any person to do any act that would otherwise constitute infringement. This provision operates independently of Section 33 and enables direct licensing by the copyright owner without the intermediary of a registered copyright society.

The relationship between Sections 30 and 33 has produced conflicting judicial opinion across High Courts. The Madras High Court in Novex Communications Pvt. Ltd. v. DXC Technology held that only a registered copyright society can carry on the business of licensing sound recordings, reading Section 33(1) as covering all licensing activity regardless of whether the licensor is the copyright owner itself or merely an intermediary. The Bombay High Court in Novex Communications Pvt. Ltd. v. Trade Wings Hotels Limited (2024) took the opposite view, holding that Section 33(1) restricts intermediary licensing businesses but does not restrict copyright owners and their exclusive licensees from directly enforcing and licensing their rights. The Bombay High Court's position preserves the distinction between a copyright owner acting in defence of their own rights and a third party operating a licensing business.

Sections 54 and 55 of the Copyright Act complete the statutory picture. For the purposes of civil remedies, the term "owner of copyright" includes an exclusive licensee. An exclusive licensee therefore has standing to maintain a suit for infringement and to apply for interim injunctive relief, without needing to either register as a copyright society or join the original copyright owner as a co-plaintiff in every action.

Analysis

The Section 33 Defence Fails

PPL's case rested on assignment deeds and exclusive licensing agreements with multiple music labels, granting it the exclusive right to licence the public performance of sound recordings in its repertoire across India. The defendants argued that without registration as a copyright society under Section 33(1), PPL lacked the authority to demand licence fees or to restrain their public performances.

Justice Deshmukh rejected this argument by applying the Bombay High Court's prior ruling in Novex Communications v. Trade Wings Hotels Limited. Under the principle that a coordinate bench's ruling binds subsequent benches of the same court, and noting that the contrary Delhi High Court decision carried no binding authority before the Bombay High Court, the court held that PPL's right to seek injunctive relief without registered copyright society status was no longer a question open for fresh adjudication.

This is the correct legal position within the Bombay High Court's jurisdiction, and it has now been applied in two successive decisions. Whether the Supreme Court will eventually resolve the conflict between the Bombay and Madras positions remains to be seen, but for proceedings before the Bombay High Court, this question is settled.

The Section 61 Defence Fails

Section 61 of the Copyright Act requires that in a suit by an exclusive licensee, the owner of copyright shall, unless the court otherwise directs, be made a party either as a plaintiff or as a defendant. The defendants argued that PPL's failure to join the original music labels as parties rendered the suits non-maintainable.

The court rejected this for two independent reasons. PPL had filed the suits in a dual capacity: as copyright owner by virtue of the assignment deeds through which copyright had been transferred to it, and as exclusive licensee under the licensing agreements. The first capacity gives PPL direct ownership standing, making the Section 61 requirement inapplicable on its own terms. The second reason: even reading Section 61 at its highest, it does not create an absolute embargo on granting interim relief. Non-impleadment of the copyright owner is a procedural deficiency that the court retains discretion to address or waive, and that deficiency cannot defeat a strong prima facie case of infringement at the interlocutory stage.

The Section 31 Defence Fails

The defendants referred to the Delhi High Court's decision in Al Hamd Tradenation v. Phonographic Performance Ltd., which had engaged with compulsory licensing under Section 31 of the Copyright Act. Section 31 allows a copyright board to grant compulsory licences in certain circumstances, including where the owner has refused to grant licences on reasonable terms. The defendants' implication was that because PPL's licensing fees were alleged to be unreasonable, they were somehow entitled to use the sound recordings pending a licensing determination.

The court rejected this defence with pointed reasoning that raising the spectre of compulsory licensing under Section 31 as a shield against an infringement action amounts to implicitly acknowledging PPL's copyright ownership. A defendant who says "your licence fees are unreasonable, so apply to the copyright board" cannot in the same breath deny that the plaintiff owns the copyright. The two positions are inconsistent, and the implicit acknowledgment of ownership fatally undermines the defence on the merits.

The Injunction

Having found that PPL established a strong prima facie case of infringement supported by affidavit evidence, that the defendants had demonstrated no legal entitlement to use the sound recordings in public, and that the balance of convenience favoured PPL given the scale of 94 outlets and the ongoing nature of the infringement, the court granted interim injunctions restraining the defendants, their agents, and all persons acting on their behalf from publicly performing or communicating sound recordings from PPL's repertoire without a valid public performance licence.

What Operators Need to Know

Who Owns the Rights You Need

Three principal entities license public performance rights for sound recordings and musical compositions in India, and operating a public entertainment or hospitality venue requires understanding the distinction between them.

Phonographic Performance Limited licenses the public performance of sound recordings, meaning the recorded version of a song as produced by a music label. PPL's repertoire covers recordings from most major Indian and international labels whose recordings circulate in India. Playing a recorded song in a restaurant, hotel lobby, retail outlet, or event space uses the sound recording, and PPL's licence covers this use.

The Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS) licenses the public performance of musical compositions and literary works, that is the underlying song itself, encompassing the melody and the lyrics, separately from any particular recording of it. A live band performing a song in a restaurant uses the musical composition even if no sound recording of that specific performance exists, and IPRS's licence covers this use. Playing a recorded song also involves the underlying composition, which means a single public performance event may engage both PPL's rights and IPRS's rights simultaneously.

Novex Communications is a separate entity that holds public performance rights for a distinct repertoire of sound recordings through assignment agreements with specific labels. Depending on the labels whose music an establishment plays, a Novex licence may also be required in addition to PPL and IPRS licences. The practical position for any venue that plays commercially released music is that licences from both PPL and IPRS are almost certainly required for the repertoire in regular use, and that Novex licences may be additionally required depending on the specific content played.

What Triggers the Obligation

Any act of communication to the public requires licensing. A speaker system playing a recorded song, a television broadcasting a music channel, a DJ set using recorded tracks, a jukebox, a streaming platform's output from a connected device, each constitute communication to the public under Section 2(ff) of the Copyright Act. The size of the audience, the commercial intent, the price charged to customers, and the prominence of the music in the establishment's offering are not elements of the test. A single recorded song played once over a single speaker in a single-table café requires a licence in the same way a concert hall playing a full programme requires one. The obligation exists at the level of the act, not the scale.

The common assumption that subscribing to a streaming platform for personal or commercial use covers public performance rights is incorrect. Streaming licences such as Spotify Premium, Apple Music, or any comparable service are end-user licences for private consumption. They do not grant the subscriber a licence to communicate the content to the public in a commercial context. A restaurant operator who plays Spotify through a speaker system while holding a Spotify subscription has a personal use licence and no public performance licence. The two are separate rights, held by separate parties, requiring separate authorisations.

What Happens Without a Licence

Section 51 of the Copyright Act treats every unlicensed public performance as a separate act of infringement. In a restaurant chain of 94 outlets playing music daily, the number of distinct infringement acts accumulates rapidly. Courts treat unlicensed public performance at commercial scale as a pattern of conduct that satisfies the balance of convenience test for injunctive relief without difficulty, as this case demonstrates. The practical consequence of operating without licences is an injunction that shuts down all music across all locations, with exposure to a suit for damages and costs running through full trial.

Obtaining licences before any claim is filed is considerably less expensive than defending an infringement suit. PPL and IPRS both operate licensing schemes with published tariffs, offer online licensing portals, and routinely send notices to establishments they identify as operating without licences. A pre-emptive application for a licence after receiving such a notice is the correct response. Ignoring the notice, or continuing operation on the basis that the licensing fees are unreasonable, places the operator in exactly the position the defendants in this case occupied: facing an injunction while raising arguments that implicitly acknowledge the plaintiff's ownership.

Also read: Copyright law Principles on Infringement

Conclusion

The Copyright Act's definition of "communication to the public" encompasses every commercial use of music in a public space, and the enforcement machinery of Sections 54 and 55 has always been available to exclusive licensees without any registration requirement under the Bombay High Court's interpretation of Section 33.

What this order does, in practical terms, is bring enforcement to 94 restaurant outlets simultaneously, making the cost of ignoring the obligation visible in a way that individual notices had not achieved. The hospitality sector's general unfamiliarity with music licensing is natural. Restaurant and café operators are not acquainted with IP laws. They acquire a streaming subscription, connect a speaker, and consider the matter done.

Advisors to restaurants, cafés, event venues, wedding planners, retail chains, hotels, and any operator who plays music in a commercial space should raise music licensing as a matter of routine compliance review, not as a crisis response. The obligation is continuous, the licences are available, and the cost of compliance is predictably lower than the cost of litigation.

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