MUMBAI: Tips chairman and managing director Kumar Taurani, has been elected as the chairman of the board of directors of the Indian Music Industry (IMI) and Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) for 2009-2010. Taurani succeeds Saregama managing director Subroto Chattopadhyay.

As was reported by Businessofcinema.com Chattopadhyay recently also stepped down as the MD of Saregama India.

The board rotates the chairmanship amongst its members, who at present are Sony Music managing director Shridhar Subramaniam, Venus Records chairman Ganesh Jain, Universal Music managing director Rajat Kakar, Aditya Music managing director Umesh Gupta, EMI-Virgin general manager T Suresh and RPG Enterprises-Saregama CFO G B Aayeer.

As the new chairman Taurani’s key responsibilites will be IMI and PPL and will focus his energies on enhancing the IMI’s partnership with telecom and broadcasting industries. Speaking to Businessofcinema.com, Taurani says, "It is a good partnership and there is a lot to be done. I have been traveling lately and now that I am back I will see how best I can bring about increased awareness for public performance licenses. I will be involved with the strategy."

The Indian Music Industry, established in 1936, is a non-profit, non-commercial organization. It is primarily focused at present to resuscitate the lost stature of the music industry by promoting and encouraging development of music culture, facilitating the evolution of fair trade and business practices and ensuring a copyright compliance.

IMI has its headquarters in Mumbai with offices in Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai and has an anti-piracy headed by retired IPS officer Julio Ribeiro. Says Taurani, "The anti-piracy team headed by Julio Ribeiro is very efficient and we will try our best to do whatever we can to fight piracy, we will also involve teams on non-physical piracy. But piracy is something that can only be controlled but very difficult to finish. It is one of the biggest problems today."