Indian royalty collection society the Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) banked Rs172.6 crore (around $23.2m) in the financial year ended March 2020.
This was good enough to place India at number 32 in the global rankings for music rights collections, according to umbrella body CISAC. That might not seem like a high ranking, but it’s a rise of fourteen spots from the 2019 report.
The 2020 figures were boosted thanks to past settlements from TV and radio users as well as deals struck with Facebook and audio-streaming service Hungama Music, the CISAC report states.
During his keynote at the All About Music conference in September, IPRS CEO Rakesh Nigam shared some numbers for FY 2020-2021: revenues were “slightly lower” (Rs169.8 crore to be exact) despite a steep but expected drop in public performance royalties from Rs55 crore in 2019-20 to Rs12 crore in 2020-21.
IPRS has paid out Rs325 crore over the last two years, he added. Out of this, approximately Rs200 crore was distributed to author-composers, around Rs108 crore to publishers and the rest to foreign societies. Notably, IPRS is the only copyright society registered in India under its Copyright Act of 1957.
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