Every time a caller hears a film song before the call gets connected, a short but legally significant act of communicating copyrighted work to the public occurs. What initially appears to be a simple agreement between a music label and a telecom service provider is in reality a far more complex web of rights. The Indian Performing Right Society Limited v. Vodafone Idea Limited dispute before the Commercial Appellate Division of the Calcutta High Court has brought the issue into focus and made it necessary for courts and the industry to reconsider who really owns the right to authorize the commercial use of a musical composition within a sound recording.
To understand the dispute, one has to know the distinction that Indian copyright law sets out between a sound recording and the underlying works therein. Several intellectual creations come together when a song is created. The lyrics, protected as a literary work, are the contribution of the lyricist, The melody and the composition belong to the composer. It is protected as a musical work. The sound recording, which records the output of these combined elements, is a separate work in itself, owned by the producer or the music label. For many years, industry practice was based on the notion that a licence from the music label to use a sound recording included the right to use the underlying literary and musical works as well. The IPRS v. Vodafone Idea litigation directly challenged this notion.
The Facts and the Legal Question
Vodafone Idea Limited provides telecommunications services that include value-added offerings, such as the Caller Ring Back Tones (referred to as CRBTs or “hello tunes”). The service allows subscribers to select a pre-recorded song that callers can hear while their phone is ringing. To this end, Vodafone had partnered with a leading music label, Saregama India Limited, to use sound recordings from Saregama’s catalogue. The key issue before the Calcutta high court was whether these agreements with Saregama were sufficient or whether the company was also required to obtain a licence from IPRS, the registered copyright society which administers the performing rights of authors and composers of literary and musical works.
IPRS is a copyright society registered under Section 33 of the Copyright Act, 1957. It administers the collection and distribution of royalties for the public performance and communication of works on behalf of lyricists, composers and music publishers. Saregama had, through prior agreements, assigned the rights in the underlying literary and musical works in its sound recordings to IPRS. Vodafone continued to commercially exploit the works through its CRBT service without a separate licence from IPRS. Thus, IPRS filed proceedings before the Calcutta High Court, claiming that such use was an infringement of the rights administered by it.
The 2012 Amendments and the Radical Change
Before the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, the relationship between music labels and performing right societies mainly depended on contracts. Authors of literary and musical works often receive little or no financial benefit once they assign their rights to producers or music labels. The Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 brought fundamental transformation to this legal position. The amendment included provisions to safeguard the rights and financial interests of authors of original literary and musical works, who have always been given unsympathetic treatment. The amendments included provisions to ensure that authors of literary and musical works retain their right to receive royalties whenever those works are commercially used or communicated to the public. Importantly, this right cannot be waived by the author. Any agreement that purports to license away these statutory rights is considered void.
Justice Ravi Krishan Kapur, in a single-judge judgment delivered on May 17, 2024, regarded these amendments as a radical change in the legal framework concerning the author’s rights. The court held that Saregama, having assigned the underlying musical and literary rights to IPRS, no longer retained any authority to grant licence or sublicense those rights to Vodafone. Any alleged licence by Saregama to Vodafone in respect of those underlying works was therefore without legal basis and ineffective. Consequently, Vodafone could not rely solely on its agreement with Saregama to avoid liability for infringement. The court held that Vodafone was under a statutory obligation to obtain a separate licence from IPRS and to pay the requisite royalties for the commercial communication of the underlying literary and musical works.
On 8 May 2026, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court comprising Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi upheld the findings of the Single Judge and dismissed the appeal filed by Vodafone. The Appellate Court found that a license to a sound recording from a music label does not automatically grant the user the right to commercially exploit the literary and musical works within that recording. The only exception made by the court is with regard to the exhibition of cinematograph films as a whole in cinema halls, which is covered by a specific statutory exemption. Except for that narrow exception, whenever a sound recording that includes literary and musical work is commercially exploited, a separate licence from the body administering those underlying rights is required. The court also ordered the release of about thirty crore rupees, deposited by Vodafone with the Registrar of the Court during the pendency of the proceedings, to IPRS, subject to an undertaking for refund in case the society did not ultimately succeed in the final disposal of the suits.
Why This Case Matters Beyond the Music Industry
This case has significance beyond merely the parties involved or even the music streaming industry. For decades, licensing of sound recordings to telecom operators and digital platforms was carried out with no systematic recognition of the independent rights of the authors and composers whose creative work gave those recordings their commercial value. The CRBT business in India, which is a major source of revenue for telecom companies, was built on a licensing model that essentially bypassed the original creators at its basis. The Calcutta High Court’s judgment addressed this structural imbalance by holding that “the amendments introduced by the Copyright Amendment Act, 2012 allow IPRS to claim royalties in respect of musical and literary works in a sound recording when such sound recording is commercially exploited”, and that “the Act of 1 957 has recognized the right of the author of literary and musical work in a sound recording to receive royalties and consideration in the event, sound recording is used for commercial exploitation other than when, such sound recording is forming part of cinematograph film which is exhibited in a cinema hall.”
The judgment also clarifies the legal status and scope of authority of the registered copyright societies in India. One of the constant challenges in the music licensing ecosystem has been the extent to which copyright societies can claim rights independent of the labels with which the underlying works are linked. By holding that IPRS enjoys independent rights from Saregama, and that agreement between Vodafone and Saregama cannot affect those independent rights, having specifically found that “agreements between Vodafone and Saregama cannot affect the right of IPRS, if they otherwise exist” and that “Saregama does not have any legal authority or competence to grant licence in respect of underlying musical and literary works incorporated in sound recording of Vodafone for commercial exploitation” and “Vodafone does not have licence to commercially exploit the underlying contents of sound recording incorporated in the sound recordings without express permission from IPRS”, The court has considerably strengthened the position of Copyright Societies in the enforcement of the rights of authors. This has practical implications for any digital service provider, broadcaster and telecom operator in India that commercially exploits music, who now will have to ensure that their licensing agreements cover both the sound recording rights held by the label and the underlying performing rights administered by bodies such as IPRS.
The ruling is bound to result in a resetting of commercial arrangements across India’s digital music landscape. Streaming platforms, telecom value-added service providers, radio broadcasters and other entities that communicate music to the public for commercial gain will need to audit their existing licence portfolios to determine whether they have the necessary authorisation not only from the owners of the sound recording but also from performing right societies. In many cases, this involves entering into new agreements with IPRS or similar societies, along with royalty obligations that have traditionally been avoided or minimised through reliance on single-source licensing from labels.
That said, some practical questions remain. The determination of what is a fair and reasonable royalty rate, and the manner in which disputes between copyright societies and commercial licensees over such rates, continues to be a grey area. The judgement has not addressed the lack of an effective method for setting up royalty rates in India. It is likely that the clarification of legal obligation to license through IPRS will be followed by disputes over the amount of royalties, thus giving rise to future litigation. Whether the industry’s response to this ruling results in a more equitable distribution of royalties to lyricists, composers, and their successors, or whether it will generate a new layer of transactional complexity, will depend on the willingness of all stakeholders to engage with the spirit of the law and not merely its letter. A ringtone, it turns out, carries more legal weight than the few seconds of music it plays.
Written By
Ananya Reghu
