Facebook inks music licensing pact with IPRS

Mumbai : The Indian Performing Rights Society Ltd on Monday announced a pact 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.”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,” Manish Chopra, Director and Head of Partnerships, Facebook India, said in a statement.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.The announcement comes just a couple of weeks after Instagram announced the extension of the testing of TikTok rival Reels, which allows users to record, edit and share short multi-clip videos, to India.”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,” said lyricist Javed Akhtar who is also the Chairman of IPRS.