New Delhi: The Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS), representing nearly 6,500 authors, composers, and publishers from all over India, has launched the ‘IPRS for Fair Music’ campaign to strengthen the music ecosystem in the country.

The week-long campaign that began on 26 April will witness a slew of activities including panel discussion, virtual knowledge sessions, felicitation of fair music partners to create awareness about the need to safeguard the creators’ right to fair compensation.

“At IPRS, we strongly advocate why fair trade of music is critical and how it will help the original creators. Digitisation and other technological advancements have empowered creators and taken the music far and near. But at the same time, the creator stands a higher risk of his/her creative ideas getting copied. So, there is a need to protect the rights of the music right holders,” said IPRS CEO Rakesh Nigam. “We are pleased to launch this campaign to spread this message across platforms. Fairtrade music is a practice that needs to be accepted and followed in India.”

On Monday, IPRS organised a virtual panel discussion in partnership with Indiantelevision.com and Iprmentlaw, which focused on the challenges and opportunities and the need to build a healthy ecosystem for music in India.

It will also organise ‘Know Your Rights’ – a virtual knowledge session with eminent lawyer Ameet Datta. There will also be a session on music licensing and fair pay for music to address the frequently asked questions about different licensing options based on usage and platform. IPRS will also felicitate its fair music partners, for endorsing fair trade music.

“The exploitation of any creative work is entitled to be duly credited and remunerated. We need to build more awareness about fair pay and fair play of music,” said noted lyricist, poet and screenwriter Manoj Muntashir.