Music is among the oldest and most universal forms of human expression and it is also among the most legally complex categories of creative work that copyright law is called upon to protect. A single commercially released song involves, in the ordinary case, at least three distinct creative contributions – the musical composition created by the composer, the literary work of the lyricist and the performance captured in the sound recording by the performer. Each of these contributions attracts independent legal recognition under the Copyright Act, 1957. Each vests in a different person or class of persons. Each carries its own bundle of exclusive rights. And each generates its own revenue stream whose allocation has been, historically, a source of persistent tension between the creative authors who make music and the commercial interests that distribute and exploit it.
Indian copyright law’s treatment of music has evolved substantially over the decades since the Copyright Act came into force in 1957. The 1994 amendments introduced the sound recording as an independent category of copyrightable work and recognized performers’ rights for the first time. The Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 – the most significant legislative intervention in the field in recent memory – restructured the royalty framework for musical works incorporated in films and sound recordings, introduced moral rights for performers and attempted to correct a long-standing imbalance in the distribution of value between creative authors and the industry that commercially exploits their works. The result is a statutory framework that is, in important respects, more protective of composers, lyricists and performers than the law that preceded it – but one that continues to generate disputes, litigation and calls for further reform.
This article examines, comprehensively, the copyright framework governing music in India – the nature of the three distinct copyrights in a musical work, the ownership and rights of composers, the separate copyright of lyricists, the rights of performers, the collective administration of musical rights, the impact of the 2012 amendments and the significant cases that have defined the field.
The Three-Layer Architecture of Music Copyright
Before examining each right individually, it is essential to understand the three-layer architecture that Indian copyright law imposes on a commercially released musical work. This architecture – derived from the structure of Sections 13, 14 and 2 of the Copyright Act – distinguishes the Indian framework from simpler systems and is the source of both its richness and its complexity.
The first layer is the copyright in the musical work itself – the composition consisting of the melody, harmony and musical notation created by the composer. Section 2(p) of the Act defines “musical work” as a work consisting of music and includes any graphical notation of such work, but does not include any words or any action intended to be sung, spoken or performed with the music. The musical work is, on this definition, exclusively the musical component – the tune, the arrangement, the harmonic structure – stripped of its verbal content and of its performance. Section 14(a) grants the owner of a musical work the full bundle of rights applicable to literary, dramatic and musical works generally.
The second layer is the copyright in the literary work comprising the lyrics. The words of a song – the text created by the lyricist – are an original literary work within the meaning of Section 2(o), which defines “literary work” to include computer programmes, tables and compilations including computer databases, but which courts have consistently interpreted to include any original textual expression regardless of literary quality. The lyricist’s copyright in the words of a song is entirely independent of the composer’s copyright in the music – the two works happen to be performed and recorded together, but they are legally distinct and their copyrights vest, absent contrary agreement or the provisos to Section 17, in different authors.
The third layer is the copyright in the sound recording – the fixed, produced version of the song that results from the recording process. Section 2(xx) defines “sound recording” as a recording of sounds from which such sounds may be produced regardless of the medium on which such recording is made or the method by which the sounds are produced. The copyright in the sound recording vests in its producer under Section 2(d)(v) – the person who takes the initiative and responsibility for making the recording. Section 14(e) grants the sound recording producer a distinct bundle of exclusive rights in the recording as such, independent of the rights in the underlying musical and literary works.
Section 13(4) is the statutory declaration of this three-layer architecture: the copyright in a cinematograph film or a sound recording shall not affect the separate copyright in any work of which a substantial part forms the basis of the film or recording. The sound recording producer’s copyright in the recording does not extinguish or absorb the composer’s copyright in the melody or the lyricist’s copyright in the words. All three persist independently and, in principle, all three require separate authorization when the music is to be commercially exploited.
The Composer’s Copyright – Nature and Scope
The composer of a musical work is the author of that work within the meaning of Section 2(d)(ii), which defines “author” in relation to a musical work as the composer. Section 17 provides that the author of a work shall be the first owner of the copyright, subject to the provisos that qualify this general rule in employment and commissioning contexts.
The exclusive rights of the owner of copyright in a musical work are set out in Section 14(a). These are: the right to reproduce the work in any material form including storing it in any medium by electronic means; the right to issue copies of the work to the public not being copies already in circulation; the right to perform the work in public or communicate it to the public; the right to make any cinematograph film or sound recording in respect of the work; the right to make any translation of the work; the right to make any adaptation of the work; and the right to do any of the above in relation to a translation or adaptation.
Several of these rights are of particular commercial significance in the music context. The right to perform the work in public or communicate it to the public under Section 14(a)(iii) is the right that generates performance royalties – the revenue that flows to composers when their music is played on radio, broadcast on television, streamed online or performed in public venues. The right to make a sound recording in respect of the work under Section 14(a)(iv) is the mechanical right – the right that must be licensed when a record producer wishes to create a commercial recording of the composition and which generates mechanical royalties. The right to make an adaptation under Section 14(a)(vi) covers the creation of derivative versions of the composition – arrangements, remixes, orchestral versions – all of which require the composer’s authorization absent an express contractual licence.
The term of copyright in a musical work is, under Section 22 of the Act, sixty years from the beginning of the calendar year following the year of the author’s death. For a composer who dies in 2025, the copyright in their musical works will subsist until the end of the calendar year 2085. This is the post-mortem auctoris term that applies to all literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and which reflects the Berne Convention’s minimum standard of life-plus-fifty years – India having adopted a more generous life-plus-sixty standard in line with international practice.
The Lyricist’s Copyright – Independent and Co-existing
The lyricist occupies a position in the music copyright framework that is theoretically equal to the composer’s but has historically been practically inferior. Lyricists create original literary works of considerable commercial value – the words of popular songs are among the most widely reproduced and publicly performed literary texts in circulation – but their rights have been consistently undervalued, under-remunerated and imperfectly understood by the industry that exploits them.
The lyricist’s copyright in the words of a song is an original literary work under Section 2(o). Section 2(d)(i) defines “author” in relation to a literary or dramatic work as the author of the work – meaning the person who creates the text. The lyricist is therefore the author and first owner of the copyright in the song’s words and holds all of the rights under Section 14(a) in respect of that literary work, independently of and simultaneously with the composer’s rights in the musical work.
The most important right for the lyricist in commercial practice is the right to communicate the work to the public under Section 14(a)(iii). When a song’s lyrics are broadcast on radio or television, streamed through an online platform, performed in a public concert or played through a venue’s sound system, the literary work comprising the lyrics is communicated to the public. In principle, this requires the lyricist’s authorization just as it requires the composer’s authorization and the sound recording producer’s authorization. In practice, the administration of this right through collective management organisations – primarily the Indian Performing Right Society, which represents both composers and lyricists – means that a single IPRS licence covers the performing rights in both the musical and literary elements of a song.
The adaptation right is also commercially significant for lyricists. A film that creates a new version of a popular song – substituting new words for the original lyrics while retaining the melody – requires both the composer’s authorization for the adaptation of the musical work and the lyricist’s authorization for the adaptation of the literary work, unless the producer owns both as first owner under Section 17’s provisos.
The Provisos to Section 17 and the Film Music Context
The most significant qualification on the composer’s and lyricist’s first ownership applies in the film music context. The provisos to Section 17 provide that where a work is made by an author in the course of their employment under a contract of service or in pursuance of a commission by another party, the employer or commissioning party shall be the first owner of the copyright in the absence of any agreement to the contrary.
For music created specifically for a film – the case of the overwhelming majority of commercially significant Indian film songs – the composer and lyricist are typically engaged by the film producer under contracts that bring the proviso into operation. The result, affirmed by the Supreme Court in Indian Performing Right Society v. Eastern India Motion Pictures Association (1977), is that the film producer becomes the first owner of both the musical work and the literary work, alongside the copyright in the film itself and in the sound recording. The composer and lyricist, on this analysis, have no residual copyright in their works as incorporated in the film – they have been compensated by the fees paid under their engagement contracts and the producer acquires the full bundle of rights.
The practical consequence of this framework, in the pre-2012 world, was that composers and lyricists received a one-time payment for their contribution to a film and had no ongoing entitlement to royalties from the film’s broadcast, satellite licensing, digital distribution or any other form of commercial exploitation. As the value of exploitation rights grew – particularly with the rise of satellite television channels in the 1990s and digital streaming platforms in the 2010s – the gap between the one-time payments received by creative authors and the revenues generated by the commercial exploitation of their works became increasingly glaring.
The 2012 Amendment – Restoring the Balance
The Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 introduced a series of changes specifically designed to address the imbalance between film producers and the composers and lyricists whose works generate the commercial value of film music. These changes are among the most significant reforms in the history of Indian music copyright and their full implications for the industry continue to unfold.
Section 18 of the amended Act provides that where an author of a literary or musical work incorporated in a cinematograph film has assigned their copyright in such work to the film producer, the assignment shall not affect the author’s right to receive an equal share of the royalties and consideration payable for the utilisation of such work in any form other than as part of the cinematograph film. The royalties payable in respect of the utilisation of the work in any form other than as part of the cinematograph film shall be shared equally between the assignee and the author.
The proviso to Section 18 makes this right non-waivable: any agreement to the contrary shall be void. This means that a film producer cannot contractually extract from a composer or lyricist a waiver of the equal royalty share as a condition of engagement. The right to receive an equal share of royalties from non-film exploitation of the work is a statutory entitlement that persists regardless of the terms of the engagement contract.
Section 19 was simultaneously amended to include a corresponding provision that any assignment of copyright in any work to produce a cinematograph film shall not affect the right of the author to receive royalties in respect of the utilisation of the work. Additionally, where the author of a work assigns the right to broadcast the work by radio or communicate it to the public, the author has a right to receive royalties for each such communication and this right cannot be assigned other than to a legal heir or a copyright society.
These provisions collectively ensure that composers and lyricists receive an ongoing economic benefit from the commercial exploitation of their works, even where the copyright has been assigned to the film producer. The administration of this royalty entitlement flows through copyright societies – primarily IPRS for performing rights – and its practical implementation has been the subject of ongoing industry negotiation and, in some cases, litigation.
Performers’ Rights – Recognition and Scope
The performer occupies a different position in the music copyright framework from the composer and lyricist. Performers do not create the underlying works – they interpret and give voice to works created by others. Their contribution is the performance itself – the vocal quality, the interpretive choices, the technical skill, the emotional expression that transforms a written composition into the living musical experience that audiences value and purchase.
Prior to the 1994 amendments, Indian copyright law provided no specific protection for performers. The 1994 amendments introduced a separate chapter on performers’ rights – Chapter VIII, comprising Sections 38 to 39A – recognizing for the first time that performers have a legally protected interest in the control and remuneration of their performances. The 2012 amendments substantially strengthened this framework, extending performers’ rights to the digital environment, introducing moral rights for performers and aligning Indian law with the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, 1996 and the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances, 2012.
Section 38 of the Act provides that a performer shall have the exclusive right to do or authorize the doing of any of the following acts in respect of the performance or any substantial part thereof: to make a sound recording or visual recording of the performance; to reproduce a sound recording or visual recording of the performance in any material form including storing it in any medium by electronic or other means; to broadcast the performance; to communicate the performance to the public otherwise than by broadcast; to sell or give on hire or offer for sale or hire, any copy of the sound recording or visual recording; and to make available to the public copies of the sound recording or visual recording through sale or rental or any other means of transfer of ownership.
Section 38(4), introduced by the 2012 amendment, provides that performers’ rights shall subsist until fifty years from the beginning of the calendar year following the year in which the performance was made. This term is shorter than the copyright term for authors of works, reflecting the international standard under the TRIPS Agreement and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.
Section 38A, also introduced by the 2012 amendment, provides that the rights of a performer are not affected by the rights of the author of the work performed. This provision confirms the structural independence of performers’ rights from the copyright in the underlying works – a performer who performs a song retains rights in their performance regardless of who owns the copyright in the composition and the lyrics.
Performers’ Moral Rights – Section 38B
Section 38B, introduced by the 2012 amendment, extends moral rights protection to performers in terms broadly parallel to the author’s moral rights under Section 57. Section 38B provides that independently of a performer’s economic rights and even after the transfer of those rights, the performer shall have the right to claim to be identified as the performer of their performance and the right to restrain or claim damages in respect of any distortion, mutilation or other modification of their performance that would be prejudicial to their reputation.
The right to be identified as the performer is the performative equivalent of the author’s paternity right. A musician whose name is omitted from a recording’s credits, a singer whose vocal contribution is attributed to another, a session player whose performance is incorporated in a commercially released work without acknowledgment – all of these performers have a claim under Section 38B to insist on appropriate identification.
The integrity right under Section 38B protects performers against modifications of their recorded performances that would damage their professional reputation. A vocalist whose performance is re-pitched to correct intonation in a way that distorts the expressive character of the original; a musician whose recorded parts are processed beyond recognition; a performer whose live recording is edited to create a false impression of their performance – all of these may engage the integrity right, subject to the requirement that the modification be prejudicial to the performer’s reputation rather than merely unwelcome.
The practical significance of Section 38B in the Indian music industry has not yet been fully tested in the courts. As the use of digital audio workstation technology to manipulate and alter recorded performances becomes ubiquitous and as artificial intelligence tools increasingly enable the synthesis and modification of vocal performances without the performer’s knowledge or consent, the integrity right for performers is likely to become a more active area of litigation.
The Indian Performing Right Society – Collective Administration
The Indian Performing Right Society is the principal copyright society in India for the collective administration of the performing and communication rights in musical and literary works. Established in 1969 and re-registered following the 1994 amendments under Section 33(3) of the Copyright Act, IPRS represents composers, lyricists and music publishers and administers their public performance and broadcasting rights on a collective basis.
The rationale for collective administration is the practical impossibility of individual rights enforcement at scale. A composer whose songs are broadcast on hundreds of radio stations, performed in thousands of venues and streamed across multiple digital platforms cannot individually negotiate licences and collect royalties from each of these users. IPRS acts as the intermediary – licensing users on behalf of its members, collecting royalties according to established tariff schemes and distributing the net proceeds after deducting administrative costs.
Section 33 of the Copyright Act provides that no person or association of persons shall engage in the business of issuing or granting licences in respect of any copyright work except under and in accordance with the registration granted by the Copyright Board. This provision gives the copyright society system a regulatory character – only registered societies may collect royalties on behalf of rights holders and their administration is subject to oversight by the Registrar of Copyrights.
The tariff-setting function of IPRS is central to its practical operation. IPRS publishes tariff schedules for different categories of users – radio broadcasters, television channels, hotels and restaurants, event organisers, digital platforms – and issues blanket licences that cover the performance and communication of all works in its repertoire. The quantum of the tariff is a frequent subject of dispute between IPRS and commercial users and several landmark decisions in Indian copyright law – including the IPRS v. Aditya Pandey litigation – arose from precisely this kind of commercial disagreement.
The Phonographic Performance Limited is the corresponding organisation for sound recording producers, administering the communication and broadcasting rights in sound recordings as distinct from the underlying musical and literary works. The co-existence of IPRS and PPL and the question of whether users of recorded music require licences from both or only one, has been the central practical and legal controversy in Indian music licensing for decades.
The IPRS v. Aditya Pandey Ruling and Its Implications for Performers and Authors
The Delhi High Court’s 2011 decision in IPRS v. Aditya Pandey, discussed in detail elsewhere on this platform, held at the interim stage that a broadcaster holding a sound recording licence from PPL is not required to obtain a separate licence from IPRS for the underlying musical and literary works when communicating the sound recording to the public by broadcast. The Court extended the Supreme Court’s Eastern MPA reasoning to the post-1994 sound recording copyright, holding that the communication of a sound recording as a composite work does not separately engage the communication right in the underlying works.
This ruling, combined with the practical dominance of the sound recording in the commercial exploitation of music, had the effect of reducing the practical significance of IPRS licensing for film music broadcast on FM radio and television. If a single PPL licence covers the broadcaster’s obligations in full, the composer and lyricist receive no direct royalty from that licensing transaction – their share of the sound recording producer’s revenues depends entirely on their contractual arrangements with the producer and, after 2012, on the statutory royalty-sharing provisions of the amended Section 18.
The 2012 amendments responded to this structural problem by creating the non-waivable right to an equal royalty share discussed above. The interaction between the IPRS v. Aditya Pandey ruling, the 2012 amendments and the evolving practices of digital streaming platforms has created a licensing landscape of considerable complexity. Whether OTT platforms licensing film content from producers owe any direct royalty obligation to composers and lyricists under the 2012 amendments – or whether that obligation falls exclusively on the producer to satisfy from the licensing revenues received – is a live question whose resolution is central to the economic welfare of India’s creative music community.
Non-Film Music – Independent Artists and the Rights Framework
The discussion above has focused primarily on film music, which has historically dominated the Indian music industry and generated the most significant copyright disputes. However, independent music – compositions and recordings created outside the film industry structure, by artists who write, perform and produce their own work – presents a different and in some respects simpler legal picture.
An independent musician who composes, performs and produces their own songs is simultaneously the author of the musical work, the author of the literary work (if original lyrics are written) and the producer of the sound recording. All three copyrights vest in the same person as first owner. The full bundle of rights under Sections 14(a) and 14(e) belongs to the same individual, who is also the performer and holds performers’ rights under Section 38. This unity of rights ownership, which is the characteristic position of the independent artist in the contemporary streaming economy, gives that artist maximum control over the exploitation of their music.
In practice, however, most independent artists enter into distribution or licensing agreements with record labels, digital distribution platforms or music publishers that transfer or licence some or all of their rights in exchange for marketing, distribution infrastructure and revenue collection services. The terms of these agreements – and the adequacy of the statutory protections available to artists who sign them – are a persistent concern in the music industry globally and in India. The 2012 amendment’s non-waivable royalty provisions were designed to address the most egregious forms of rights stripping in the film context, but their application to independent music agreements that do not involve the film industry is less clear.
Key Cases in Music Copyright
Indian Performing Right Society v. Eastern India Motion Pictures Association, AIR 1977 SC 1443 is the foundational authority on the relationship between the film producer’s copyright and the rights of composers and lyricists. The Supreme Court’s holding that the film producer who commissions music and lyrics becomes first owner under Section 17’s provisos and acquires the right to exhibit the film including its acoustic content without further authorisation from the creative authors, established the legal architecture within which all subsequent developments in this field have occurred.
IPRS v. Aditya Pandey (2011) applied and extended the Eastern MPA principle to the post-1994 sound recording regime and held that a PPL licence is sufficient for FM broadcast without a separate IPRS licence. The decision’s treatment of the relationship between sound recording rights and underlying work rights and its analysis of public performance in the corporate events context, are examined in detail in the separate case analysis on this platform.
Tips Industries Ltd. v. Wynk Music Ltd. (2019) is the definitive Indian authority on whether on-demand music streaming constitutes “broadcasting” within the meaning of Section 31D of the Copyright Act, which provides for a compulsory licence for broadcasting. The Bombay High Court held that Section 31D does not extend to on-demand streaming because streaming is interactive and individual rather than simultaneous and undifferentiated. The decision means that OTT platforms and digital music services cannot avail themselves of the compulsory licence rate and must negotiate direct licences with rights holders – a ruling of considerable commercial significance for the streaming economy.
Neha Bhasin v. Anand Raj Anand (2006) addressed performers’ rights and the right to attribution in the music industry context. The Delhi High Court held that a singer whose vocal performance was incorporated in a commercial recording had rights under Section 38 of the Act in respect of that performance and that the failure to give appropriate credit could constitute a violation of the performer’s rights. The case affirmed that performers’ rights under Chapter VIII are legally enforceable and not merely hortatory.
Blackwood & Sons Ltd. v. A.N. Parasuraman (1959) remains the leading Indian authority on the distinction between fair dealing and infringement in the context of literary and musical works. The Madras High Court’s analysis of the fairness test – examining the purpose, the extent of use and the competitive impact on the original – provides the framework for assessing whether the use of musical works in educational or critical contexts qualifies for the Section 52 exception.
Super Cassettes Industries Ltd. v. Hamar Television Network Pvt. Ltd. (2012) applied the current events reporting exception under Section 52(1)(a) to the television broadcast of musical works and held that the reproduction of songs in the context of reporting on film releases did not fall within the exception because the reproduction exceeded what was necessary for the news report and substituted for the work in the market. The case confirms that the fair dealing exception must be applied narrowly in the music context and that commercial broadcasters cannot rely on it to avoid licensing obligations.
Gramophone Company of India Ltd. v. Birendra Bahadur Pandey (1984) addressed the importation of sound recordings and the scope of the copyright owner’s rights against parallel imports. The Supreme Court held that the importation of sound recordings without the authorisation of the Indian copyright holder constituted infringement under Section 51, establishing that the Indian copyright framework provides effective protection against unauthorised importation of recorded music.
Artificial Intelligence, Music Generation and Emerging Questions
The rapid development of artificial intelligence tools capable of generating musical compositions, synthesising vocal performances in the style of real artists and producing studio-quality recordings without human performers has introduced a set of questions that the Copyright Act, 1957 was not designed to address and that are currently unresolved in Indian law.
The training of AI music generation systems on datasets of existing compositions raises questions about whether the reproduction of musical works for training purposes constitutes infringement of the reproduction right under Section 14(a)(i). The generation of outputs that closely resemble or derive from existing works raises questions about whether those outputs infringe the musical copyright in the original compositions. The synthesis of vocal performances in the style of real artists – a technology now widely available and commercially deployed – raises questions about whether the performer’s rights under Section 38 extend to the unauthorized imitation of their vocal characteristics by an AI system.
Indian law has not yet addressed any of these questions. The Copyright Office has not issued guidance on AI-generated music and no court has ruled on the infringement implications of AI music generation. The issue has generated significant litigation in the United States, where lawsuits filed by music publishers against AI music companies are working their way through the federal courts. The outcomes of those cases and the legislative responses they may prompt in the United States and Europe, will inevitably influence the Indian debate.
The question of whether an AI-generated musical work can attract copyright protection at all – and if so, in whom the copyright vests – is a threshold issue that Indian law must address. The Copyright Act defines “author” of a musical work as the composer and “composer” implies a human being exercising creative judgment. A musical work generated autonomously by an AI system has no human composer in the conventional sense. Section 2(d)(vi), which provides that in the case of a computer-generated literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, the author shall be the person who causes the work to be created, offers one possible basis for recognizing copyright in AI-generated music, with the programmer or user who directs the AI system being treated as the author. However, the adequacy of this provision for truly autonomous AI generation – where the human input is minimal and the creative decisions are made by the system – is doubtful and requires legislative clarification.
International Framework – TRIPS, WIPO and India’s Obligations
India’s music copyright framework operates within the international architecture established by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the WIPO Copyright Treaty, 1996 and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, 1996. India is a party to the Berne Convention and TRIPS and has signed but not yet fully ratified all provisions of the WIPO internet treaties, though the 2012 amendments brought Indian law substantially into alignment with the standards those treaties require.
The Berne Convention requires a minimum term of life-plus-fifty years for musical and literary works and mandates protection for the communication to the public right. The WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty requires the recognition of performers’ moral and economic rights and the protection of the making-available right – the right of performers and sound recording producers to make their works available on-demand through digital networks. The incorporation of the making-available right into Section 38’s catalogue of performers’ rights by the 2012 amendment was India’s primary legislative response to this treaty obligation.
The TRIPS Agreement’s Article 14 requires members to provide performers with the possibility of preventing certain acts done without their authorization – including the fixation of their unfixed performances and the reproduction of such fixations. India’s performers’ rights framework under Sections 38 to 39A satisfies these obligations, though the adequacy of enforcement mechanisms – particularly in the context of online platforms – continues to be assessed.
Conclusion
Copyright in music – as between composers, lyricists, performers and the commercial infrastructure that exploits their collective creativity – is one of the most dynamic, commercially significant and legally complex areas of intellectual property law in India. The three-layer architecture of musical work, literary work and sound recording creates a framework of co-existing rights whose management requires constant legal attention. The producer-centric first ownership model, qualified by the 2012 amendment’s royalty-sharing provisions, attempts to balance the commercial imperatives of the film industry with the legitimate economic interests of the creative authors who make that industry possible.
The challenges that remain are real and pressing. The implementation of the 2012 royalty-sharing provisions against a film industry that has historically resisted them is incomplete. The licensing framework for digital streaming platforms – which now dominate the distribution of Indian music globally – is contested and evolving. The rights of performers in the AI era, where vocal synthesis and musical generation technologies are rapidly advancing, are largely unaddressed. And the international obligations that India has undertaken, most fully articulated in the WIPO internet treaties, continue to press for a more rigorous and consistently enforced performers’ rights regime.
For composers, lyricists and performers, an understanding of this framework is not merely academic – it is the foundation of their ability to control the use of their creative work and to share in the economic value it generates. For practitioners advising them, an understanding of the three-layer architecture, the impact of the 2012 amendments, the role of collective management organizations and the landmark decisions that have shaped the field is essential. And for the industry that exploits this music – the broadcasters, streaming platforms, event organisers and film producers – compliance with a licensing framework of increasing complexity is both a legal obligation and, increasingly, a condition of operating in a market that takes creative rights seriously.
References
- The Copyright Act, 1957, Sections 2(d), 2(o), 2(p), 2(xx), 13, 14(a), 14(e), 17, 18, 19, 22, 38, 38A, 38B, 39, 39A – https://copyright.gov.in/Documents/CopyrightRules1958.pdf
- The Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 – https://copyright.gov.in/Documents/Amendment_Act2012.pdf
- Indian Performing Right Society v. Eastern India Motion Pictures Association, AIR 1977 SC 1443 – https://indiankanoon.org/doc/553674/
- The Indian Performing Right Society Ltd. v. Aditya Pandey & Anr., CS(OS) 1185/2006 (Delhi High Court, 2011) – https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1207507/
- Tips Industries Ltd. v. Wynk Music Ltd. (2019), Bombay High Court – https://bombayhighcourt.nic.in
- Neha Bhasin v. Anand Raj Anand, (2006) 32 PTC 779 (Delhi High Court) – https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1388633/
- Super Cassettes Industries Ltd. v. Hamar Television Network Pvt. Ltd., (2012) Delhi High Court – https://indiankanoon.org/doc/63965570/
- Blackwood & Sons Ltd. v. A.N. Parasuraman, AIR 1959 Mad 410 – https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1041822/
- Gramophone Company of India Ltd. v. Birendra Bahadur Pandey, AIR 1984 SC 667 – https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1664505/
- Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works – https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/
- WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, 1996 – https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wppt/
- Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances, 2012 – https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/beijing/
- TRIPS Agreement, Article 14 – https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips.pdf
- WIPO Copyright Treaty, 1996 – https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/
- Copyright Office of India – https://copyright.gov.in
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