UK collecting society PPL has announced a deal with India’s performer society ISAMRA, which capitalises on changes that occurred within the Indian record industry's collective licensing system last year.
The agreement will benefit Indian performers whose music is played in the UK, and British performers whose recordings are used in India. Previously the flow of money between the UK and Indian collective licensing systems only benefited labels.
"This partnership with ISAMRA is an important moment for the rights of performers in India”, says Laurence Oxenbury, Director Of International at PPL. “The UK is a significant consumer of Indian repertoire and money has already been paid from PPL in the UK to ISAMRA, benefiting hundreds of performers who did not historically have an entitlement to revenue".
India is a massive growth market for the record industry, with the recent ‘Year-End Music Report’ from Luminate revealing an 80% surge in streaming consumption. There are also significant opportunities for growth in broadcast and public performance revenues - sometimes called neighbouring rights revenues - as the Indian industry gets better at enforcing and managing these rights through the collective licensing system.
These revenues are usually shared between labels and performers, including session musicians. An alliance last year between ISAMRA and India’s record label trade group IMI helped to clarify the rights of Indian performers when it comes to neighbouring rights revenues. It also facilitated a collaboration between ISAMRA and the country’s record label collecting society, which is called PPL India (but is not affiliated with PPL in the UK).
As a result, up to 25% of the money collected by PPL India from the performance of recordings in the country will now go to ISAMRA for payment to performers.
The deal between ISAMRA and PPL UK means that British performers whose music is played in India will also benefit from these developments. And Indian performers will receive royalties when their music is used in the UK.
Confirming the practical impact of the deal, PPL says that the “new partnership with ISAMRA means that PPL mandated performers will now start to receive royalties distributed by the Indian [society] for the use of their recordings in the country”.
“In 2023”, it adds, “PPL allocated revenue to over 450 performers for use of their music resulting from the bilateral agreement, and this number is expected to increase substantially this year".