Episode 99: Why India Is Becoming Music’s Next Global Powerhouse

Royalties don’t disappear, they get stuck. When the data can’t identify you, the system can’t pay you, even if the money has been collected. That’s why I wanted to bring on Amit Dubey from Beat Street Music and Publishing in Mumbai, India; a specialist in the unglamorous back end of the music business - rights documentation, metadata accuracy, publishing administration, royalty tracking, and recovery. 

We dig into how India’s music rights ecosystem compares with the UK and US, starting with the basics: composition rights, sound recording rights, and usage. From there, Amit explains the real gap in India, not structure but execution. We talk IPRS membership, why many creators still misunderstand music publishing, and the three reasons royalties end up in a “black box”: unclear splits, poor metadata, and missing registrations. If you’ve ever wondered why a track can trend and still not pay properly, this conversation gives you a checklist mindset. 

We also look ahead at what could improve next: stronger reporting practices across radio, TV, OTT, and public performances, wider cue sheet adoption, and a culture of data discipline at the source. Amit breaks down Sangeet Dwar, India’s push towards a single licensing window for public performance, and we finish on how independent music is growing and how streaming economics and short-form platforms are reshaping creative choices. If you care about the Indian music industry, music publishing, copyright, and getting paid fairly from royalties, you’ll want this one. 

If it helps, subscribe, share it with one music creator, and leave a review telling us what topic you want next.

https://beatstreetmusic.co

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome to the music business, buddy, with me, Johnny and Amos, podcasted out of Birmingham in England. I'm the author of the book, The Music Business for Music Creators, available in hardback, paperback, and ebook format. I am a music creator myself. I'm a music industry consultant, an artist manager, and a senior lecturer in both music business and music creation. Wherever you are, whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of this community. My goal is simple. I'm here to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music.

Why India’s Market Is Surging

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Okay, my guest this week, everybody, I am joined by Amit Dubay, who is from Beat Street Music and Publishing in Mumbai, India. He is a great guy. He's somebody I've been trying to get on the podcast for a while. He's a busy boy, but I've finally found the time to be able to interview him and to just softly grill him on the Indian music market and how it compares to the rest of the world. Everybody, I am particularly interested in the shape and the landscape of the Indian music market for your benefit. Just to give you some scope, right? So in a country of what is it, maybe 1.3 billion as a population, just over half of the people in India are under the age of 30. So what we're going to see from India in the next few years, in the next several decades, I should say, is exponential growth in various sectors, right? Technology, in media, and most certainly in music. So they're in a position right now where actually they really need to kind of get a good hold on how to move forward in their music industry domestically in a big country that speaks multiple different languages. What does their rights management look like? How do they move forward and evolve? How do they learn from other places around the world and build something which is absolutely bulletproof? Well, there's one particular person who I believe is one of the experts in that country to talk to, and that is Amit. Now, I've tried for a while to get him, I've finally got him, as I say, and just to kind of fill you in a little bit more about Amit and who he is and what he does. So he has like 20 odd years worth of music industry experience across metadata systems, across TV, across radio. He's worked at the Indian Uh Performing Rights Society or IPRS. He worked there for a couple of years and really helped to kind of straighten out some of their collection systems. Um, Beat Street Music and Publishing really helps to kind of uh clean up on the back end of music royalty collection. So things like rights documentation, metadata accuracy, publishing admin, royalty tracking, recovery, uh, distribution of royalties, these are all absolutely crucial aspects, aren't they? And it would be a real shame to kind of have you know the Indian music market really evolve and kind of explode with positivity and then have to work retrospectively to fix their royalty collection. That would be a real shame, right? So instead, it's about being proactive and kind of setting up the right things like blanket licensing, like split sheets, like Q-Sheet production, all the things that you know we have come to know to be a part of our practices here, although, you know, they're not perfect around the world. And as we've discussed before in the podcast, there's a lot of different nuances when it comes to PRO collection, etc., around the world. Everyone kind of has their own little spin on it, but it's so important, right, that in India they get it right. And um, and Amit is one of the people that really gives a very powerful education uplift on this subject in order to make that happen, right? So that is what today's interview is all about, and so I shall play it now. Amit,

Rights Layers And Key Differences

SPEAKER_00 4:12

welcome to the music business, buddy. It's good to have you here. We've been planning this for a while and we're finally here. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 4:20

I'm good, thank you so much, Johnny. Uh the pleasure is all mine, and I'm sorry, I I could not get the opportunity earlier and got the time to you know join the session. Finally, we are here.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah, hey, Amit, you're a busy guy, right? You've got a lot of work to do. It's you it's a busy time, so no, don't worry. I'm just glad that we're here, we're here that we get the chance to do this now, you know. Um, I've got um uh a load of different questions. I've scaled them down to kind of like just a handful, really. Um, but let's start off with this because I am I I've said this to you before, I'm fascinated by the Indian market. Um, you know, with a population uh that of 50% of the population under the age of 30, so a very kind of digital, native, heavy audience. Um, you know, are there structural differences between sort of what we see in the UK and the US compared to India in terms of like the music rights ecosystem?

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Yeah. So uh what I have seen, Johnny, you know, in simple terms, the music rights ecosystem operates across three layers, you know, as it happens globally, composition, sound recordings, and usage. So over here, also, that this is how typically it works. Composition covers the underlying song, proletics and melody, typically owned by songwriters and publishers. Sound recording owned by the label, and usage is how music is consumed via the streaming platform or public performances, which is where royalties are generated. So that's how the you know the structure part is taken care of. In markets like yours, your or US or UK, the structure is very well supported and it's very well established and standardized. Like you have organizations like ASCAP, BMIPRS for music, and they have a predictable framework for licensing, reporting, and distribution. So in India, what happens is the structure is similar. For example, there's IPRS, Indian Performing Rights Society. I worked there for a couple of years. Yeah, but the key difference is how consistently the system operates. That's the challenge. So the challenge is uh less about structure and it's more about execution, what I've seen in India. Uh, compliance, reporting, and data consistency is still, they are these are the things which are still evolving. With time, they will learn because I've done many uh sessions, workshops with creators across the country, and they don't know what is publishing. That is also a problem. Some know, some some people they are aware, but still a long way to go.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Yeah, do you know something that I've talked about before, Amit, is is the idea of the music publishing sector. I wish it was called something different, because I think a lot of people find it confusing um as to why it's called publishing when it's not really publishing. Um and and sometimes like when when music creators have that kind of penny drop eureka moment as to like, oh, that's just the song side, not this side. It's being aware of that, you know, it's like it's you know, we expect, we hope that PROs around the world try and collect as best they can, but if the music creators um don't always understand the difference between their own rights, that's also a problem, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:52

True, yeah. And I'll share a joke, you know, what what happened? I uh my visit to a city, I'll not name the creative person and not the city as well. So they told me, uh, will you be publishing a book out of the songs I have composed and written? No, that's a different thing altogether. So that's where some creatives, uh creators are, and I must sit, I must tell you, it's some creators, not all part of the country. But the good part about IPRS, where I have worked and where we initiated mini workshops during my tenure, that is that has changed a lot. People have started attending workshops, be it online, be it uh physically, and they have started gaining knowledge about publishing. So the new breed of creators who are coming into picture, they know a bit. And uh the old ones are trying to learn, and there comes you know the good people who are showcasing the knowledge, people like you who are supporting the artists with your podcast. So these things really help them because they do listen to the podcast, they try to go and check out on YouTube, Spotify, and when they have questions, they come back to us because copyright in India is a bit different. Uh uh there are many uh layers to it. I'm just digressing a bit from your topic. Yeah, yeah, because you know, over here, a composer can compose for any label. There's no restriction. And in the West, what happens if a composer is tied to a composer's, for example, X, and if compos uh the label or the publisher Y wants him, wants to use him, the the share will happen between two publishers also, territory-wise, you know. So the complexity increases there, but in India, they're free to work with anyone. So generally, if they are working with a publisher for X number of songs, they'll do that, then they can jump into some other uh publisher or simultaneously they work. So that complexity when it comes to registration of works in societies or distribution, it's very simple. Then also we face problem. There, that's the reason I said execution is the problem. They have to put efforts to understand these things, they have to put efforts to type correctly, you know, multiple languages. These are also issues which we'll discuss later. But uh, these are the problems which I have been seeing of late.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Interesting. Okay. Um you you've said something there that's just kind of captured my imagination. Um, do you find in the Indian market that a lot of writers and producers tend to work more on like single song deals or like just a couple of songs at a time? Is that something that you're seeing in India, that kind of that free-flowing kind of relationship between writers and producers as opposed to long-term relationships?

SPEAKER_02 10:44

So a yes and a no. Because suppose if it's a film song, a film might have ten tracks or five tracks in that. And depending on the because in India the films also have music, you know, songs are there. Yeah. So if if someone got the opportunity to compose for a film, that's a big thing because they'll get the the best marketing, because the actors will be involved. So over there, the commitment will be only uh pertaining to that particular film. And post that there are some publishing houses, the film publishing houses, what they do, they sign a contract for three films or two films, but they never, you know, stop anyone from doing or working for other filmmakers or other producers of the film. And and uh that's why I said a yes and a no. And they are free to release as a self-publisher their works, or they're free to release tracks with any uh publisher or label for that matter in India. I have to use label and publisher because in India, all the labels are the publishers, so it's it's very easy for people in India to understand. But if I'll talk to them about in detail about, you know, no, you are a label, you are not the publisher, but that that confuses them. So so to keep simple, uh keep it simple in India, it's very simple. All the labels have are the publisher mostly. There are very handful of uh publishers are there in our country. They are specifically they are called publishers, but 99% labels are publishers.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Really? Wow, that's okay. Wow. I am drawing so many links between what you've just said and other territories. So um I recently spoke to somebody on the podcast who is kind of like a China division for America, and um and he said that in China everything is kind of like just you know, one business, right? You know, publishing, management, live, everything's just kind of like, you know, it's set as like separate sectors within a wider industry. Um, and I've noticed more and more in Europe in the last sort of 10 or 15 years, a lot of the dance labels that have always been a little bit further ahead in terms of how they structure their deals have started to move into this label and publishing model, um, which kind of makes sense because then they get more back-end collection on all of the things that they're doing, and very often those songs really only get used once and then remixed, which fits that model really, really well. If we then compare that to the wider UK model, um, you know, in the in the 60s, it was kind of common practice for a lot of songwriters to just do one-song deals with music publishers and then have the label signed separately, and then somewhere along the lines from the 70s up to kind of like the 2010s in the UK, everybody went into catalogue structures. And then I've noticed in the last few years it's kind of gone back almost to what it was in the 60s, where there's a lot of songwriters that say, you know what, let me work on a per project basis, like you were saying there with the films. Let's work on these songs for this project and let's treat that separately from this project over here, which tends to give a bit more control to music creators to be more flexible. But the model of tying publishing and label work together to me makes a lot more sense, um, especially as we move forward. So that's something that you're seeing very much in India. Yeah, that's the case over here. Interesting. Is that just because it's more there's more in it for companies that invest in music creators?

SPEAKER_02 14:22

True, that that's that's that's the important answer which you have already given because that's more for them. And uh people over here, you know, they don't want more complexity in their life. Yeah, yeah. They they just that that's the reason I told you the the complexity when it comes to publishing outside India is more in the West. Over here, we have tried to simplify it. Still, the execution always fails because they they have there has to be willingness to do they they only focus on releasing their track. So they think that they have distributed the track via a distributed their job is done. They don't they don't understand the RPROs. They'll get uh you know royalties from them as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Because in a country like ours, when I joined IPRS in 2019, I left in 2025, and between that time from 5,000 members, it went on to 15,000 members. Now in a country like ours, it's very less. You know, you know, it's it's really, really less. We should have more members uh in our PRO because they they they don't realize that their money is going into a black box because uh system doesn't know whom to pay the money, even if the royalty is collected.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Yeah, yeah. Do um do songwriter members have to pay to join IPRS?

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Oh yeah, there is a very, very minimal fee. Very minimal fee, and uh that's for lifelong membership. Yeah. On their website, you can see the details. So it's hardly anything, it's rupees 1200 for a composer-author for lifelong membership.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Ah, okay, that's pretty good. Okay. Um very interesting. Okay.

The Royalty Black Box Problem

SPEAKER_00 16:06

So you've mentioned there a little bit about the kind of the mistakes perhaps that some Indian artists and rights holders might make. Um leaving money on the table, uh, let's say. Um are there any kind of actionable lessons or or any real-world examples that you can think of where you go, yeah, there is definitely money being left on the table here.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Yeah, yeah. So, Johnny, you know, most creators don't lose money because of bad deals. They lose money because they are invisible in the system, as I was mentioning earlier. So, royalties don't get lost randomly. They get lost when the system cannot identify who to pay. And uh for that, you know, there are three important things which I feel is important. First, ownership clarity is important. I have noticed firsthand a lot of songs are released without properly agreed splits. And later on, when the song is trending, there's a fight happening. Second is the poor metadata that is also a problem in the country because of uh inconsistent spelling names, you know, missing roles, incomplete credits, and but you know, but once the bad data enters the system, it keeps breaking things downstream. It doesn't happen that it'll automatically get rectified and things will be fine. And the last important thing which I have noticed is a lack of proper registration. If works are not registered with bodies like Indian Performing Rights, IPRS for that matter, or PRS in UK, then from a system perspective, they don't exist. And they don't realize it. You have released the track, you have distributed the track, but you're not registering your work with Pieros. So in their system, system is a non-living thing. They don't know you.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Yeah, that's that's a good thing I love it that you said that because that is the reality, isn't it? You know, yeah. Um, I mean, for for independent artists releasing music, let's say, in the Indian market today, what are the things that they need to get right? If we were to have like a checklist of the things that they need to get right in order to be able to collect those royalties, um so song splits is is crucial, right? You can't get the metadata right without getting the song split. So that should be an early conversation, right? That negotium negotiating who owns what.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Yeah. See if you insist on a set list, what I already told you in in totality, one should focus on documenting the proper ownership, the splits. That is really, really important. Because if I keep on giving you the steps and what all they have to take care of, uh it'll be a long list. But in totality, holistically, you know, so they need to ensure these things are maintained, like ownership clarity, which is a big, big issue in India, then the poor metadata, because in India there are many languages. Out of that, seven, eight languages are very popular, and tracks in those languages are released, and you know the scripts are different. But all the softwares in India which we use are in English. So a regional language guy typing their language track in English, they might type in a different word. You know, the spellings might be different, and then some other composer uploading the same track with a different spelling. So there comes duplicate tracks with three arrows. They have to, you know, uh how to explain. I'll give you one uh one Hindi word that's called kismat. Kismat means you know the fate. So during the 60s and 70s, kismat, they used to write with q, q as in queen. Now they write with k, k as in king. So so this is this happens, you know. If you if you don't have an ISRC, you have not they don't bother about ISRC, and you're typing uh song title with a different letters, then this also creates problem. And and I've seen many, many issues uh uh during my period uh with PROs also, that they think that they have to register all the versions of their track in the system instead of populating the ISRC codes only. So these are also basics that they need to follow. They don't need to populate everything because the composer, author, and publishers are the same. Only the recording, you know, code needs to be added, sound recording code, the ISRCs. So these are the things which are changing, which is happening. So I think when they when the work is getting distributed, that time only if the data is properly ingested, it really helps. But of course, when it comes to PROs, you need the real names because in India people release this tracks with the name of Kaka, Bachas, you know. So in reality, their real names are different. So, like, you know, Beatles. Beatles will not have a bank account, you know, there will be uh band members. The same thing in India. So so that is how uh these uh educations have helped, they have realized, and now they have started during my period, also have seen and now the labels and the composer authors uh with whom I do the advisory work and guide them. So they ensure that they provide their alias names, the spelling versions, because suppose on Spotify they have some other spelling, they must inform the PROs. Because once that goes into the systems, it'll be easy for them for the PRs to track. So these are the basics which uh all the creators and uh you know self-publishers should take into account. And proper registration is important. They think that uh without registration their work will be done. That's not the case. And um one thing I introduced when I was with IPR is that they have to provide validation links. When I say validation link, I mean meant either you have a CD cover, if it's a 60s track and you have not uploaded it yet on Spotify's of the world, or uh you YouTube link or Spotify link so that we can validate that it's your track. So this really helped the PR of the country to check many aspects. In fact, when I had my sessions with CISAC Asian Summits in Asia, so over there also I propose that this should be accepted globally because I've seen other societies are also facing the problem of duplicate uh registrations. Because one track is registered by composer, the other by author, and if there's a spelling version or there's a space, double spacing is their system doesn't understand, they accept it. And then somebody has to manually do it. So if validation links are provided, it really helps the PROs to check it thoroughly, you know, because the names will match, things will be correct. And if there is a different alias name, they can at least email the their members and ask, is it you? So there can be a way that the money which is laying in the black box, which I will come back to them, you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah, absolutely. Um that's very exciting because um, you know, if we if we go back to the population thing again just for a moment, like I I I think to myself, right, in India, you're in a position right now where you could educate an entirely new generation and they then educate that next generation. That's much like there's an opportunity there to make that happen, isn't there, given how many young people there are? Sure.

AI Challenges And One Source Of Truth

SPEAKER_02 23:28

There's a lot of opportunity, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah, we don't really have that that luxury in in the UK in in the same way. I often wonder if there might be like if we look at um other platforms and other sort of um you know financial technology tools, if there might be better ways to kind of actually verify uh identification. Um you know, like kind of like um, you know, like when people get verified on LinkedIn, for example, and they have like the um uh biometric verification uh against their authentic, you know, or like maybe like the use of like eye colour or eye shape or something like that. I mean, that wouldn't wouldn't that be amazing? Like to be like there'd be no black boxing, would there, if that was if that was a thing.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

I know it'd be very expensive to implement, but um uh that's a nice thought, but you know what? Uh the AI has come into play, and uh what I am seeing over here that AI is challenging the existing systems, the technology part of it.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

When Spotify, Apple, or Amazon Music came into play, uh they prepared the streaming platform as per their vision that this many, these many works will be uploaded or ingested during these many days. Now you know in a day it's more than 100,000 tracks are getting ingested. So basically, people keep saying that AI is doing this and that. I say AI is basically challenging the existing system. So so what you are talking about, this is possible, very much possible, but we have to first uh ensure that whatever technology we have, we have to ensure that it is correct. And to make it correct, you know, you have to ensure you have to provide correct metadata. AI understands only data. And if all the trainings, if suppose you are talking about biometric, if somebody uses my name instead of yours, and and my alias name is Johnny, and somebody does something here and there, and then then then what will happen? So that's the reason uh there should be one source of truth. When I see there are many sources of truth, which is not correct, not only in India. Globally, I've seen that there are many sources of truth. So, yeah, what you are suggesting is right. If biometric can be implemented, why not? Because that might help a lot. Because uh right now many PROs are not even using the fingerprinting, which is very much there since many, I think, almost more than a decade or so. Yeah, yeah. So that's what I think.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

I guess it's the cost of implementing it, but yeah, because there are existing technologies like the fingerprint, the thing that we use to open up our our phones, right? Face ID, the things that we use to open up our laptops with fingers, you know, it's yeah, um, yeah, it's it's it's interesting. Um there's there's been a lot of discussion around kind of transparency and royalty distribution uh in in India. Do it sounds to me like things are improving because there is that education lift, and it's you know, that's why you um are such an important figure in in the landscape, because you know, you're helping people to understand the differences between the song and the recording and the ISRC from the ISWC and these kind of things. Um so there has been uh progress, there's there's ongoing structural issues as there are with a lot of PROs around the world. Um, but you know, what would you like to see? What changes would you like to see going forward? What would you like to see sort of the IPRS improve on, for example, moving forward?

Sangeet Dwar And Reporting Reform

SPEAKER_02 27:05

I think the right way to look at India is in three parts. One, what has improved, second, where the system still struggles, and third, what needs to happen next. So, point one, when we talk about what has improved, India has definitely made uh meaningful progress over the last few years. The biggest shift, of course, is the digital platform. Streaming has brought a level of usage tracking and visibility that didn't exist earlier. You know, even if you go to Spotify, you will be able to see many tracks trending in the charts. You know, the collection framework have also become more structured with organizations like IPRS, as we are discussing. And uh there's a more organized approach, there are more organized approaches which are being taken into consideration these days. And one interesting thing which has happened very recently, I wrote a blog also on that. The initiatives like Sangeet Dwar, you know, there was no single licensing window in India for public performances. So government of India initiated that, and then you can Google out, you'll find that website Sangeet Dwar. It really helps to reduce friction for users. So such initiatives is happening, these progress are happening in recent years. And when I come to the second point, what are the ongoing structural issues? Yeah, where the system still falls short is in execution consistency, because this is the core problem I've been seeing since many years. In areas like television and radio, reporting is still not as robust or standardized as it needs to be. And Q-Sheet, for example, because background rights when it comes to this. Q-sheet adoption, I'm talking about here. Q sheet adoption is improving, but it's still not fully embedded across the system.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Yeah, that's that's a really, really a huge problem in India. And you know, with the rapid growth of OTT globally and regional music, this challenge becomes even more complex because scale increases faster than data discipline. There has to be a data discipline which is not there at all. So these are the structural issues which I see in India. Yeah, when I talk about the next point of mind that the possible future reforms direction. So I think improvement will depend on three things. A stronger and more standard reporting practices, especially broadcast OTT and public performances. Because what happens, public performance happens, nobody bothers to send a set list. They record the clip and they send, and the PRs will have to listen to the entire recording and guess whose work is this. That's the problem, yes. Second, better data discipline at the source, you know, ensuring that ownership's place, metadata are accurate. Before music even starts the system, even before the distribution happens. You have to have that discipline. So, and the C point is continued simplification of licensing so that users don't face friction in compliance. The opportunity is in India is very, very large. But unlocking it will depend on how well the ecosystem can align, tracking data, distribution, all these things. So the direction is positive, but transparency at scale will depend less on technology, I feel, and more on consistency in data and process. So that needs to be taken care of. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. Okay. Um, and you mentioned before as well about obviously like AI impacting rights management and publishing and that kind of thing. Um, final question for you on this, Amit, because I really appreciate your insight here. It's very, very insightful. Um, uh, I want to ask you about blanket licensing. So um the you you referred earlier to it, was it Sangeet Waha? Is that am I saying that?

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Sangeet is music, and Dwar is that means door. So that's that's the word uh the government has used, and uh I'll share the link with you, Sangeet Dwar. So you can see that's a single licensing window platform. This is a really great move. Of course, they have just started it, there's still a long way to go. But you know, instead of taking licenses from different players for public performances for events, there's one window, which was long due. Finally, we have that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

That's that's a major step. Yeah. Um, so will that allow for businesses, broadcasters, um, all sorts of different people to be able to just pay one fixed fee and then use whatever they want and just report back on what they've used?

SPEAKER_02 31:50

Yeah, for public performances that can be used and that will help them.

unknown 31:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Because that will be more standardized way of taking license. Otherwise, in India, I you have to take license from IPRS, people, PPL, you know, RMPL. So there are three, four players out here, so that created a ruckus infriction. So better to have one, you know, we can call it a rate card, proper structure, so that people can, you know, as per the number of people attending the event, they can apply and take the license.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's a that's really, really, really good to hear because that should massively help things moving forward, I would think. Um also there's another, so we talked earlier in the episode about the idea of um music creators becoming more informed and educated on the difference between their rights and their duties. But but also when it comes to registration, but also there's an education lift for music users, right? The culture, right? The data discipline culture that you mentioned about you know knowing that they need to fill in cue sheets and and report on them accurately. That needs to happen for all of this to work, doesn't it? So I think as time goes by, I think that'll just get easier and easier, I would think. Do you would you agree?

SPEAKER_02 33:13

Uh, it'll get easier and easier depending on the policies, also. Because when it comes to Q sheets, in India there's no regulation. Government is not forcing the broadcasters that they have to provide Q sheets to PROs. And broadcasters, they have an argument that they don't get royalties. Wi Fi will provide Q sheets. So, but in other Asian countries, I've been attending many uh sessions conducted by CISAC when I was with IPRS. So over there, I've seen in some of the countries the government they have the regulation that broadcasters will have to submit Q sheets to the PROs. So I I really like that. That that's a nice move because otherwise it will be very difficult, you know, because you imagine you bring you are you you're yourself a you're a creator also. So when you create a track, you're a creative person, and filling, populating a Q sheet is a tedious job, you know. If you have and in India, when a film is of three hours and there are TV series of uh one one hours, you know, so one has to watch it again, and there are thousands of episodes, and they have to submit the entire Q sheet. It's a task for a creative person, and that's why the broadcasters need to do that, and for that we need uh some push from the government, which they are of course they have done something, that's why Sangeet Dwar came into picture, and there are good moves being made by the government. So we are just waiting, things are changing, things are improving, and finally government is also helping us grow in a better way in India.

unknown 34:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

Okay, yeah, that uh that helps, yeah, yeah, that'll that'll really, really help.

Gen Z Listening Habits And Economics

SPEAKER_00 34:50

Um, sorry, there is one more thing I'd love to ask you about if that's all right. Um is have you what I'm interested to to see with again with so many like young people, uh, you know, in terms of like audience and like the young the average young person's kind of musical tastes, um have you noticed any kind of cultural shifts? Like, for example, when you think of like the Indian market, or the Indian markets, I should say, because there's so many, it's so multifaceted and layered with different languages, as you mentioned earlier. Um, um, you know, a lot of people think of Bollywood, for example, and that kind of crossover between music and media and the role that that plays in how people discover music. You know, I are are is is the younger, you know, generate Generation Z in India are they embracing Bollywood in the same way that previous generations did, or have their tastes changed?

SPEAKER_02 35:39

Or yeah, no, no. Recently, off late, independent music is growing like how.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

And it's not like only Bollywood film songs will work. In fact, it's going the other way around gradually. If you Google out, you'll s you'll see many artists from the rest of the world are coming to India for events. So in India also, many independent artists are growing, the things are changing, and it's good for us because if you don't support independent artists, you'll not get the variety. And and also the way we consume music has drastically changed. You know, the economics has changed, and and this also because it brings to an interesting topic which I keep talking about. The economics have changed, not the creative person. People keep saying that these younger guys are creating bad songs, that they are not creative and stuff. I said, no, guy, no, no, no, that's not the correct way of looking at them. Why? Because earlier, if you remember, uh, yesterday is what happened, people used to buy series, albums. They used to buy the entire album, which has five songs, five singles, or five tracks in it, and they used to own that. Now it's a subscription-based model. And number of usage, how many times that song has been played, on the basis of that money will be given to the artist. So the entire dynamics has changed. So they are pushed by the economics, and that's the reason they are trying to be more creative. There's a Instagram shot reels of 15 seconds, and in 15 seconds they have to create something interesting that people play it again and again. That's a huge, huge task. That was not earlier. If you will uh listen to Indian music of 60s, 70s, 80s for that matter, the prelude was of one minute, 20 seconds, one minute, 30 seconds, with no voice, no vocals. But now we are a generation that we have a generation which listens to 15, 20 seconds and decides whether I should listen to this track or not. So I think they are more creative. These this current generation are more creative, they are pushed more, and uh they are taking us to the next level. Of course, there are challenges. At times they just follow the algorithm. This track is working, there's a boon and bane, you can say, and they they just follow the algorithms instead of following their heart. So that is also that is also I have noticed, but whosoever's sticking to the core uh core thing, core uh creation part, you know, to their heart, you know, when they create something from their heart, then any AI or anything which is coming into picture, they cannot replace a human being because they are created via the data which has been ingested in the database. So I feel that it speaks of both, you know, that that's answers your question. Anything else you have if you have in mind on this topic, you can ask here.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Oh that that that answers the question. That's perfect. Yeah, yeah. Um I love how you explain things, Anne. You have a good way of explaining things and simplifying things. I appreciate it. Thanks. It's good, it's good. Um, okay. Well, thank you so much for your time. You're doing an extremely important job at Beach Street Music and Publishing, and and and you know, and all of your experience, what you've done at the IPRS, and everything else you've done in your career. I just I wish you good luck moving forward. You're a great guy, Amit, and you're in a great place, and I wish you nothing but the best.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Thank you so much, Johnny. All the best to you as well. And uh, let's see, we can collaborate in the future for something and help more creators because the idea of the idea of Beat Street is basically not only to help creators who are established, but also to help street musicians. That's a CSR thing which I've been planning since ages, but let's see, that needs funding. So I've been working on that so that you know I I believe that every street across the globe has some musical talent. And they need that needs some nurturing, and that nurturing can only happen if we people like us educate them. So that's how it is. So that's what I'm trying. I've been trying to do that here.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

That is that is a potential global partnership right there. You know, that you know, okay, maybe it epicentres itself out of India, but but that could be a global partnership that really could. I think that will resonate with a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

I do think so, hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Yeah, I think so. I think so. Yeah, well, maybe we should recheck back in a few months and talk about that as well, because that's another subject that would be fascinating. Um, but for now, thank you, Amit. I greatly appreciate your time here today. Thank you so much, Johnny. Thanks for having me.

Host Reflections And Closing

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Okay, there you have it. What a lovely guy. What a lovely, lovely guy. He's a family man, he's a hard-working guy. Um, he's doing a very, very, very important job. Uh, you know, for the for Indian music creators and for Indian music publishers and record companies. Uh, wasn't it interesting, by the way, to see that link point between Indian publishers and Indian labels and how actually they're very often the kind of the same thing these days, which actually makes a lot of sense to me. You know, um when I spoke to Jonathan Heater recently uh from Middle Eight, you know, a couple couple of episodes ago about you know his China division for the West into China, you know, one of the things he talked about with China was like how you know a a lot of the music industries in China are actually not separate, right? Live and sync and label and distribution and publishing, it's all kind of under one roof for a lot of companies. Yeah, it makes sense, right? Because, you know, there's a lot of different people that are doing multiple jobs, right? So um when it comes to rights collection and metadata and all these different things, so it's interesting to see that the Indian music market has started to evolve in that same way. And I gave a comparison to European dance labels and the way that they do that. Again, it makes sense to me to be able to operate that way. It also kind of falls in line with how independent music is actually uh connects itself to people around the world because you know, you can be your own label, you can be your own publisher, you can be your own manager. It's wonderful, right? But at the same time, sometimes if you do then partner up and work with other professionals moving forward, you know, it doesn't have to be an all-in-it together forever situation, right? So kind of working on like one-song deals or per project deals, this is the way that things are changing and moving forward, right? More artistic control, etc. Um, I think what uh what Amit has talked about today certainly falls in line with a lot of that stuff. So I thank him for his time today. Uh, I think uh I think he is a very important cornerstone to the Indian music market and also how it exports you know internationally and stuff as well. So, anyway, I hope you found that useful. Um I know I certainly did. I hope you did too. Have a great day. Until next time, everybody, may the force be with you.