Indian music giant Super Cassettes Industries, popularly known as “T-Series” after its label, has joined the Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS), becoming the last music major in the country to do so.
T-Series joins the existing IPRS members who include Sony Music Entertainment India, Saregama India, Universal Music Publishing, Times Music and Aditya Music.
T-Series, also a leading film producer, operates a vast music library of 200,000 titles, including more than 50,000 music videos, and 15,000 hours of music across 15 Indian languages.
The deal is significant for India’s best-known authors, composers, and music publishers who are among the 5,000 IPRS members as their works will now be legally licensed. With IPRS now representing the T-Series music publishing catalogue, it will improve the ease of doing business, with numerous music licensees including broadcasters, digital services, telecom companies and other small businesses. They can license music in a single window clearance system for underlying works embodied in a sound recording or a music video. This will lead to previously fragmented or often non-existent license fees percolating back to the creators via T-Series.
“Copyright is in the heart and soul of what T-Series creates. Our joining IPRS is a logical progression for the company,” said chair and managing director of T-Series Bhushan Kumar, who will join the IPRS board. “We took this decision in the interest of the entire music industry – today the entire industry, creators, music businesses, all united, represent a seamless coalition of stakeholders contributing to our country’s progress and working together in our common interest. T-Series will bring more value to IPRS and its members. We look forward to IPRS growing even more with our support in the future so that it can benefit the creator community and the industry even more.”
“I see this as a homecoming for T-Series and thank Mr Bhushan Kumar and the T-Series family from the bottom of my heart for entrusting IPRS with its copyright catalogue,” said IPRS chair and revered lyricist Javed Akhtar. “This is a win-win proposition for T-Series and for our author and music composer members who will benefit tremendously. The entire music industry is united today in its determination that creators, music businesses all will work together for the common cause.”
Heralding a “golden age” for Indian music creators, Devraj Sanyal, MD and CEO, Universal Music Group, India and South Asia said: “For great change to effectively happen in the publishing business of the Indian music industry, you need all the major players to band together to push the agenda of fairness, transparency and equitable remunerations for both owner publishers and our respected author composers. And now with my dear friends Bhushan and teams from T-Series joining us in IPRS, that day is here.”
IPRS is India’s only copyright society and is authorized under the Copyright Act to: “issue and grant licenses in respect of musical works and literary works associated with musical works assigned to it by its members, as well as to collect and distribute the authors’ statutory royalties, for the exploitation of these works either by way of live performances or sound recordings through any medium except when exhibited as a part of a cinematograph film shown in a cinema hall.”