IPRS and Facebook sign music licensing deal

The deal with Facebook will cover licensing and royalties whenever music represented by the IPRS is used on Facebook and Instagram.

The Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) announced today that they have reached an agreement with Facebook to license its music repertoire for video and other social experiences across Facebook and Instagram. People will now be able to choose music from the IPRS repertoire with hundreds and thousands of songs, to add in their own videos they share on Facebook and Instagram, as well as other social features like Music Stickers on Stories. Through this association, the artists/ members of IPRS would be able to get their music compositions out to millions of people in the country, as some of the largest and most thriving communities on Facebook and Instagram are here in India.

The IPRS is a representative body of authors and owners, which include composers, lyricists, and owner publishers of music. The deal with Facebook will cover licensing and royalties whenever music represented by the IPRS is used on Facebook and Instagram.

Manish Chopra, director and head of partnerships, Facebook India, commented that, “Music plays an important role in India for sparking people’s creative expression. With this agreement, people will be able to access a wide variety of music and discover new scores from hundreds of authors and owners, across various genres in many Indian languages.”

Anjali Malhotra, director, International Music Publishing, Facebook, said, “We care deeply about enabling the music on our platform that is most important to people. IPRS plays an important role in that, given the meaningful repertoire of their songwriter, composer and publishing members. We continue to innovate with our music partners around the world to create new ways for people and musicians to tell their stories with music.”

Javed Akhtar, chairman IPRS said, “At the heart of music are the creators. The songwriters and the composers. IPRS is excited to create opportunities for our songwriters and composers for their use of works on Facebook and its platforms. The future is brighter when all industries work together and evolve the next phase of music usage together.”

Rakesh Nigam, CEO, IPRS said, “We are happy that Facebook and IPRS have concluded this deal. We are sure that this partnership will be very beneficial for all members of IPRS and Facebook. We are happy that more and more companies are respecting copyright and coming forth to seek proper licenses from IPRS.”