Blogs
We file our own copyright applications, run our own releases and keep our own records of what actually happened. These are the notes we wish we had found when we started.
Copyright9 posts · 2 sub-topics
Registering and defending the rights in a song in India: what the Act actually requires, and where the process trips up independent artists and small labels.
Filing copyright for a song in India: start here
A recorded song is two copyrights, not one, filed separately, with different authors. Which you registered decides what you can stop someone doing.
3 min read
The deed is what decides whether your copyright registers
Applications stall on the paperwork behind the form. Four subsections of section 19 quietly decide how much you actually bought.
5 min read
Filing online is only half of it: the physical packet
Filing online starts a 30-day clock to post originals, plus a rule requiring you to serve copies on everyone named in your own application.
5 min read
Reading the Copyright Office portal without scaring yourself
An empty screen proves nothing and one alarming status is not a problem. Plus what a registration certificate actually contains.
5 min read
Who is the author of a song copyright? It changes depending on what you file
Section 2(d) defines author separately for each class of work. The same name in Column 7 of both your applications usually means one of them is wrong.
4 min read
The musical work application, and what goes in the deposit copy
The simpler of the two filings, but section 2(p) makes what you are registering narrower than the song, and the deposit copy is where that bites.
4 min read
Why the musical work usually clears before the sound recording
File both on the same day and the composition tends to return first. Not luck, the recording carries more parties and more that can be questioned.
2 min read
Column 7 on a sound recording: why the author is probably your company
Producer is a defined term in the Act and rarely means the person credited on the release. Getting it wrong is the commonest cause of a query.
4 min read
The consent set a sound recording filing lives or dies on
A recording has more rights holders than a composition, the arranger and every performer. Missing one is why sound recording filings sit.
4 min read
ISRC3 posts
The code that identifies a recording for life: how allocation works in India, why your own registrant code differs from a distributor's, and how codes go wrong.
What an ISRC is, and why yours should be your own
An ISRC identifies a recording for life. Most independent artists use their distributor's code without realising the difference, or that their own is free.
3 min read
Getting your own ISRC registrant code in India
IMI issues registrant codes free of charge. The application is short, but one mandatory requirement catches people out, and it is not on the form.
3 min read
Allocating ISRCs without making a mess of your catalogue
Once you hold a registrant code the numbering is yours to run, and yours to corrupt. The rules that matter, and the failure nobody warns you about.
4 min read
Royalties & IPRS3 posts
Who gets paid when a song is used, which share cannot be signed away, and what a collecting society membership does that a copyright registration does not.
What IPRS is, and what joining actually does to your rights
IPRS is a copyright society under section 33(3). Membership is not a listing, you assign your performing and mechanical rights, including future works.
3 min read
Joining IPRS: the process, and the physical stage nobody mentions
The application is online; completing it is not. A document set is couriered to you, and needs wet-ink signatures and a witness before membership exists.
2 min read
Notifying works to IPRS: what the form wants, and what it will not accept
Works are notified separately from membership, and only released works qualify. What each row needs, and why the details have to match your other filings.
2 min read
Starting a label in India3 posts
The unglamorous layer nobody writes about: the entity, the registrations, the memberships, and the order to do them in so each one does not block the next.
What a label actually needs to exist
Two registrations are unavoidable, one is optional and free, and the rest is downstream. What each one is for, and which doors it opens.
3 min read
Partnership, LLP or private limited: choosing a form for a label
The one real decision in setting up. What separates the three forms, what it changes downstream, and why it is worth deciding once rather than migrating later.
4 min read
The order to set a label up in
Several of the registrations depend on each other, and one of them depends on having already released music. Sequencing it wrong means waiting.
3 min read
Music production2 posts
Taking a song from an idea or a voice note to a finished recording, and what a producer needs from you before any of it starts.
What to send a producer before they can quote
A genre is not a brief and a budget is not a scope. The five things that let a producer price a song honestly, and the one that saves the most time.
3 min read
What music production actually covers, and where it stops
Production, mixing and mastering are three jobs sold as one word. Knowing which you bought is the difference between a finished record and a folder of files.
3 min read
Mixing and mastering2 posts
What mixing does, what mastering does, which your song needs, and what to send so an engineer can actually work on it.
Mixing and mastering are two different jobs
One balances the parts of your song against each other. The other balances it against everything else. Paying for one and expecting both is the mistake.
3 min read
What to send for a mix, and why a bounced file is not enough
Stems, naming, headroom and the one thing to say out loud. Getting this right saves a round of revisions nobody enjoys paying for.
3 min read
Music for brands2 posts
Commissioning music for an ad film or a brand video, and what you actually own when it is delivered.
Who owns the music in your ad film? Paying for it is not the same as owning it
Commissioning music transfers nothing on its own. Section 19 wants writing, and silence on term or territory lets the Act fill both in, narrowly.
4 min read
Can you use an existing song in your ad film? Two permissions, two owners
A sync licence and a master licence come from different owners, and either can refuse. What clearance involves, and when original is the shorter route.
3 min read
Lyrics and songwriting1 post
Being credited and paid for words you wrote: authorship of the lyrics, the writer share, and the two registrations people assume are one.
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