Music is a commodity and the users need to pay for it just like they do for other essentials in life, remarked lyricist and screenwriter Mayur Puri during a panel discussion titled ‘Navigating Intellectual Property Rights in the Music Industry’ at the ongoing Serendipity Arts Festival 2024 Goa.
Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS) CEO Rakesh Nigam; Atul Churamani, Managing Director of Turnkey Music & Publishing, and Rafael Pereira, Executive Trustee of IMX, were also part of the panel discussion, which delved into the issues related to music publishing, copyright, licensing, managing rights and royalties for new-age creators.
Mayur lamented the lack of honesty amongst Indian music consumers, who he described as being happy to get the pleasure of music without wanting to pay for it. Such mindset is being exploited by the bigger corporations to deny the revenue to the author creators, opined Mayur, who is also a board member of IPRS.
According to CEO Rakesh Nigam, the IPRS should be raking in a revenue of thousands of crores per year but has only managed to draw in over Rs 500 crores last year as there is lack of compliance, and dearth of support in general from the government.
Atul Churamani claimed that barring a few stakeholders; radio stations, TV channels and commercial establishments have not been paying for the music broadcast to masses.
Mayur appealed to music lovers to flagoff the platforms which do not credit the original creators – lyricist and composers.
