MUMBAI: Today, Indian Performing Right Society Limited (“IPRS”) and Dataclef are pleased to announce a significant expansion of their services agreement, growing their business relationship from claiming and reports processing to comprehensive back office and rights management services including tariff administration, member self-service tools, and brand support.

As one of the world’s fastest-growing music economies, India is attracting attention and product launches from national and global music companies of all sizes. The rapid expansion of music and technology use in India means that rights holders require modern, scalable music identification and royalty administration solutions. IPRS has determined that Dataclef Suite, a fully-configurable agreement-based platform, is perfect for the forward-thinking collection society.

“The commencement of this deal will restructure IPRS into a world-class, technology-driven copyright society focused on transparency and efficiency,” said IPRS Chairman Javed Akhtar. “The Dataclef team’s deep industry and technology expertise makes Dataclef Suite the obvious choice for building the future of Indian copyright management.”

IPRS is India’s only registered copyright society for music composers, lyricists, and music publishers, committed to instituting technology-driven processes that improve member engagement, licensing, and transparency in distribution of royalties.

On average, Indian music users consume 21.58 hours of music per week, far surpassing the global average of 17.89 hours. With this usage, and unique Indian musical intellectual property, expected to grow in coming years, IPRS is uniquely positioned to support India’s music economy growth and lead the way in auditable, data-focused rights management.

Dataclef Suite, with its flexible APIs, ERP backbone, and massive rights and content database, will ensure this growth is achieved with maximum payouts and minimum overhead. Dataclef’s exclusive matching technologies and groundbreaking agreements structure are purpose-built for the complex, high-scale challenges IPRS is solving.

"IPRS is fundamentally changing how music usage is processed and paid in the Indian music market," said SOCAN Group CEO Eric Baptiste. "We are thrilled to be bringing the power of Dataclef Suite to IPRS, the Indian music economy, and the music creators and rights holders who make it an exciting and vibrant market.”

IPRS and Dataclef will immediately begin collaborative efforts to deploy and operate the new IPRS back office. The services being planned and assessed include functions, processes, and technologies required to launch a world-class copyright society using Dataclef Suite.

“With Dataclef Suite, we can manage the scale and complexity of licensing and payment agreements in the Indian music marketplace like no other partner,” said Dataclef COO Janice Scott. “Combined with IPRS’s focus on improving efficiency and transparency through technology, this is the beginning of significant positive financial and operational outcomes for Indian songwriters, musicians, and rights holders.”