IPRS-YouTube agreement to allow music composers, publishers earn on YouTube

The Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS) and YouTube have announced a licensing agreement that will allow songwriters, music composers and music publishers to earn revenue on YouTube.

This is YouTube’s first collection society deal in India.  YouTube generates revenue only when advertisements are displayed against YouTube partner’s videos, which is then shared with such partners. In this case it would mean that Indian music publishers, composers and authors that are members of IPRS will derive their share of revenue from the society for their work accessed on YouTube.

In India, YouTube has already signed deals with music labels like T-Series and Saregama who represent about 70 percent of the songs from the Hindi film industry. This agreement hopesto open up new opportunities for the entire music industry in India and leverage the YouTube platform as an additional distribution channel and revenue source.

Speaking on the development, Rakesh Nigam, chief executive officer, IPRS, said, “We are extremely delighted to do this deal with a leading video site like YouTube, as this association will benefit our publishers/music companies, author and sister societies. As more users get online, consumption and monetisation of music will increasingly happen on the internet and YouTube will drive it.”

Adarsh Gupta, senior vice-president, Saregama India Ltd, commented, “This agreement between IPRS and YouTube is surely a big step for the benefit of music industry. All the major stakeholders that is the artist, the lyricist, the music director as well as the publisher who contribute to the making of a track will now earn in a transparent manner. This association also opens an important additional revenue stream as digital content consumption is on a steady rise.”

Adam Smith, director, product management, YouTube, Asia-Pacific region, added, "This is yet another step in YouTube’s ongoing effort to help foster the creation of Indian content and reward local artists for original works available online. We are extremely pleased to have reached an agreement with IPRS that both fosters musical talent and enables this talent to receive payment for videos on YouTube.”

Over the last few years, YouTube has signed mutually beneficial deals with associations like IPRS. The other deals have been signed up with JASRAC in Japan, KOMCA in Korea, CASH in Hong Kong, MUST in Taiwan, APRA-AMCOS for Australia/New Zealand, FILSCAP in the Philippines, and COMPASS in Singapore.