Addressing a largely attended press conference at the end of the two-day meet, the IPRS director general Sanjay Tandon gave detailed information about the activities of IPRS.

Well-known music director Naushad, lyricist Hasan Kamaal and popular stage compare Kishan Sharma also addressed the press conference. Edmund Lam from Singapore, Erric Baptist from France, Izumi Kawa from Japan and Scot Morris from Australia praised the IPRS for its successful and active participation in various fields connected with the copyright and royalty. They also appealed to all the people to co-operate with the IPRS in the copyright matters. The next meeting of CISAC-Asia Pacific Committee will be held in Hongkong in 2003.

The role of the IPRS was clearly delineated at the meeting. IPRS administers and controls on behalf of its Members:
1) The performing right in musical works which are:-
· The right to perform the musical works in public
· The right to communicate the musical work to the public
· The right for broadcasting and causing the musical work to be transmitted in whole or in parts to subscribers to/or a diffusion service in all parts of the world.

2) The mechanical rights in musical works

3) The synchronisation rights in musical works
The owner of the musical work (composer or songwriter) has the exclusive right to:
* Perform or communicate the musical work to the public or to authorise any other person to do so. Therefore, exploiting or playing of music through any of the below mentioned reasons requires the permission of the owner of the music or a licence from the registrar of Copyrights:-
· by way of live performances
· by permitting any place to be used for public performance and/or communication of the music to the public:-
· by way of recorded music:
· by broadcasting/telecasting any music

Thus, all licence permitting usage of music within India by any person are issued by IPRS only. The society grants 'Blanket Licenses' for a moderate annual charge which authorises the public performance, broadcast or diffusion by wire or by any other means of any of the numerous works which the society controls on behalf of its members and that of its affiliated societies throughout the world.

'Synchronisation Licenses' are issued to synchronise pre-existing music on jingles, backgrounds, etc. for commercials/advertisements, films or any audio/video medium.

The society's licenses covers both - live performances as well as performances by any mechanical means. The business of IPRS is to issue licenses to users of music and collect royalties from them, for and on behalf of its members i.e. the authors, the composers and the publishers of music and to distribute this royalty amongst them after deducting its administrative costs.

The IPRS has agreements of reciprocal representation with 192 similar organisations in other countries, by virtue of which it is authorised to control and administer the performing rights in respect of foreign musical works within India. Similarly, the sister societies in other countries control the performing rights in Indian music within their territories.

The IPRS is a limited company by guarantee and registered under the Companies Act ,1956. It is a non-profit making body. The society is registered as the Copyright Society under section 33 (3) of the Copyright Act, 1957 and is permitted to commence and carry on the Copyright business in musical works and/or any words or any action intended to be sung, spoken or performed with the music.

The society came into existence on 23 August 1969. In its initial years it faced a lot of difficulties. Even the copyright situation in the country was not clear, there was confusion over ownership of rights as also acute lack of knowledge and information among not only the users of copyrighted material, but also amongst the owners themselves.

IPRS thus waged its way through these difficult times and managed to keep the fight for a better Copyright environment alive.

In 1990 , the society underwent a change in leadership and direction and was able to forcefully get its proposal for a change in certain provisions of the Indian law changed. It played a very vital part in the current Amendments to the Copyright Act of India.

The society is a very active member of the Copyright Enforcement Advisory Council set up by the ministry of human resources development, government of India to advise the government on Copyright issues and is also a member of the CISAC and the CISAC Asia-Pacific Committee.

IPRS today is a very active society in the Indian Copyright field. As regards collection, unlike in the past where it used to collect & distribute and remit only international royalties, it has now started collecting even for Indian Music.

IPRS has been instrumental in clarifying the ownership of musical rights in India through continuous dialogue with related industry associations. Today, the ownership of music rights (not only performing & mechanical rights) in India is a well settled issue.

IPRS, now being the registered Copyright society in India for musical works, all Copyright business in relation to musical works is to be administered and controlled by it. The Indian Copyright Act, 1957 permits only 1 Copyright society in one class of works. Thus, IPRS is the society for musical works.

There are however possibilities of certain people still trying to confuse the situation and spread wrong information. Thus it is very much advised that people get in touch with the IPRS which would be very pleased to offer any assistance in information or otherwise to them.

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