Stop Record Play, a recent webinar, encouraged artistes to start asking questions about royalties, contracts and licensing

Although most Indian classical music composers identified their works with a clear watermark, a signature phrase or word, the act of claiming credit was considered disrespectful to not just the sanctity but to the universality of music. Today, however, given the highly commercial nature of music dissemination, copyright is a topic of urgency. And one that performers must grapple with — especially with concerts having gone online.“Nothing in our talim (training) prepares us to negotiate today’s music world of royalties, contracts, licensing etc. The moment you say, ‘here are the terms; please put them in writing,’ you will be met with hostility, and comments like ‘Even Pt. Ravi Shankar played for us. He never asked us for anything’,” said Hindustani vocalist Shubha Mudgal, talking at Stop Record Play, a recent webinar on recording contracts, copyright and creative hierarchy in classical music.

Organised by Mridangamela, an initiative by mridangists Viveick Rajagopalan and Anantha R. Krishnan, it was a key webinar for these times. As Viveick explains, “The object was to make the classical music community aware of their rights and get them to start asking questions. Our music is cloaked in bhakti, and rightly so, but if it is only that, why do music labels ask for legal rights for performances from the artistes? Artistes have substantial rights, actually.”

The other panellists were Sandhya Surendran, entertainment lawyer; Jataneel Banerjee, founder and artiste, Grand Philharmonica Orchestra in the U.K.; and Aishwarya Natarajan, founder, Indianuance, a production and consulting organisation representing musicians. The idea was to remove the discomfort around legalities. As Anantha says, “We wanted artistes to know that it is within their rights to ask about these issues.”