The Indian Performing Right Society Ltd unveils ‘IPRS 2.0’

IPRS announces a major upgrade of its operating system and services

India. India’s only Copyright Society representing the authors, composers, and publishers of music, The Indian Performing Right Society Limited (IPRS), announces the implementation of the world’s most advanced operating system for Copyright Societies.

With this considerable investment, using cutting edge technology developed by Canada’s Dataclef, IPRS will provide the highest level of transparency for its members and licensees. With an authoritative database of millions of musical works and unlimited scalable processing capacity, this robust system will provide the best-in-class monetization capacity for the Society’s members.

To provide greater control and transparency to its members, IPRS is launching a portal where every member can edit personal information, access the list of his works, request modifications, submit new registrations, view a detailed royalty tracking and history of royalty payments.

IPRS 2.0 also includes state-of-the-art license administration. Strategic deals with leading brands, digital music services, and OTT players have already opened new revenue for its members: YouTube, Facebook, Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, ALTBalaji, or Ola, to name a few. With its scalable system, the Society can accurately process quadrillion lines of data and claim royalties across all broadcast and digital platforms.

While IPRS is collecting royalties for Indian and international repertoire in the Indian market, it also collects royalties for Indian musical works used in overseas markets. This process involves managing various data formats, varied and fluctuating currencies, and intense coordination with Societies across the globe.

IPRS distributed royalties of sixty crores (USD 8M) to its members since the commencement of the lockdown starting from April and set up an emergency relief fund of nearly four crores (USD 535,000) for its members impacted by the pandemic.

Speaking on this milestone, Mr. Javed Akhtar, Chairman of IPRS added: “The world as we know it is evolving at a furious pace and our music industry is no different. IPRS 2.0 is a momentous step forward in keeping pace with the changing times and bringing about positive change in our members’ lives. Our focus is clear and two-fold; on the one hand we want to bring in greater transparency.

On the other hand, we want to leave no stone unturned and leverage every opportunity to ensure our members can reap all benefits possible of their hard work and creative acumen. Our aim is to create a more engaged eco-system where we continue to grow and flourish as a community-driven by our shared passion and drive.”

Mr. Rakesh Nigam, CEO of IPRS said: “Our five-decade journey has been phenomenal, and we feel privileged and honored to offer a new chapter in our collective growth journey to our esteemed members. The new portal will bring in a high level of transparency into our operations where our members can view and check their repertoire at their own convenience.

This will help eradicate obvious errors that occur due to bad data, wrong IPs, duplicate submissions, etc. We are confident that with the new technology deployment, we can overcome these challenges and offer better value to our members.

Further, IPRS 2.0 also witnesses numerous strategic alliances as we have recently signed up licensing deals with social media channels and OTT platforms like YouTube, Spotify, Amazon Music, Facebook, ALTBalaji and Ola opening new revenue channels for our members.

With IPRS 2.0, the journey that began three years back is adding to its list of achievements, the Will to set new benchmarks in the music industry, creating more opportunities for the authors, composers and publishers of music.”

Mr. Jeff King, CEO of Dataclef added: “As an organization which is dedicated to advancing the efficiencies of rights organizations globally, Dataclef is pleased to have the opportunity to partner with The Indian Performing Right Society Limited (IPRS). India is an expanding market with great potential for the music industry, it is essential that this growth continues to be supported by a strong Collective Society.

We are collaboratively working with IPRS to design a more robust platform from which members can transparently and easily access data, align to the vision defined by IPRS. It is great to see a society actively investing in its staff and infrastructure to ultimately empower its members.”

After the new Board, elected in March 2017, it made significant changes to its constitution and professional rules, IPRS was granted registration as a Copyright Society in November, 2017 by the Government of India. One year later, IPRS was readmitted as full member by the Paris-based International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (CISAC), the apex body of 232 Authors’ Societies in 121 countries representing more than four million creators.

While addressing its General Assembly held at Tokyo the following May 2019, CISAC’s Chairman called IPRS the “fastest-growing Copyright Society in the world”. IPRS is currently completing a Development Review by CISAC to certify global best practices in corporate governance, transparency, licensing, collections, and distribution of royalties.

Adding to the above, CISAC Director General Gadi Oron said, “I would like to congratulate IPRS on serving the Indian and global music creators community for over half of a century. IPRS has undergone major changes in recent years and its return to the CISAC network in 2019 signaled its successful reform.

We are pleased to note the great effort and dedication of IPRS and the society’s commitment to meeting international best practices. Although the society suffers from the COVID-19 crisis, like all other societies around the world, its work continues and its efforts to continuously improve its operations are evident.

I have no doubt that we will see IPRS reaching new highs in the coming years, and that, turning into its 51st year of operation, it will continue to uphold the highest international standards of governance while working hand in hand with sister societies around the world, for the benefit of creators.”