Major Music Royalty Collecting Societies
- IPRS: The Indian Performing Rights Society Ltd. is a royalty collecting society in India for songwriters, composers, and publishing companies. According to their guidelines, IPRS considers music directors as composers, authors as lyricists and producers of films and music companies as publishers of the music. It’s their job to issue licenses for public performances as well as for radio and TV. Every time music is played in a public place, whether it’s a venue, club, restaurant, hotel etc., they need to get a license. If someone plays your song then you are entitled to royalties from this avenue. The money collected by IPRS is divided equally between the publishers (50%) and the composers (25%) and lyricists (25%).
- ISAMRA: The Indian Singers and Musicians Rights Association has been formed after the Copyright Amendment Act of 2012. It is the equivalent of the Performers Society in various countries and under the amendment- ISAMRA (previously ISRA) is entitled to collect revenues from exploitation of sound recordings for all income streams for performers. It is still in the process of establishing its presence.
- PPL: PPL stands for Phonographic Performance Limited and collects royalties on behalf of the owners of sound recordings, namely the record labels. Its primary job is to issue licenses for public performances of sound recordings in restaurants, hotels, clubs, bars etc.
- IMI: The Indian Music Industry is not really a collecting society but a collection of all music labels in the industry that choose to join the body. Its main job is to deal with issues related to the music industry like piracy, etc.
- PRS: PRS stands for Performing Rights Society that exists in the UK, which collects the publishing royalty for songwriters.
- MCPS: The Mechanical Copyright Protection Society collects and pays out royalties earned on the copies of your music (for e.g., through CDs or DVDs). The more copies or units you sell the more royalty you will earn. MCPS entered into an alliance with PRS, called the MCPS-PRS Alliance and both now run under the umbrella of PRS for Music.
- ASCAP: ASCAP, which stands for American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, is another society like PRS that collects publishing royalties in America.
- BMI: BMI, which stands for Broadcast Music, Inc. is also a collecting society for songwriters in America.
- HFA: Harry Fox Agency basically looks after the mechanical royalties of an artist in America. HFA issues licenses to people who wish to record or distribute songs that have already been released via CDs, tapes and records. There is a set royalty rate in America for mechanical rights, which is about “9.1 cents per copy for songs of 5 minutes or less and 1.75 cents per minute or fraction thereof, per copy for songs over 5 minutes. The royalty rate for ringtones is 24 cents per copy.”
- SESAC: Society of European Stage Authors and Composers is yet another collecting society, formed mainly to represent composers in America. SESAC recently acquired HFA (Harry Fox Agency) and now operates under the banner of SESAC Holdings; making it the only US based collecting society that deals with Mechanical Rights, synchronization rights, public performances etc. all under one roof.
- MLC: The Mechanical Licensing Collective is a non-profit organization established under the Music Modernization Act of 2018. It was created to issue blanket mechanical licenses for qualified music streaming services in the United States, such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, etc.
To know more about the societies please refer to the website of MRM