Collective management, copyright societies and the Copyright Board

Law of Copyrights · Unit III · Topic 10 of 15 · 5 min read

Why collective management exists, sections 33 to 36A on copyright societies and tariffs, the 2012 reforms, the bar on unregistered licensing, comparisons with the EU and US, and the Copyright Board from 1958 to its abolition.

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On this page

1. Why collective management
2. The Indian scheme: sections 33 to 36A
3. The Copyright Board: as it was
4. Abolition and the present forum
How this is examined

Cases checked to exist. Read the judgment before quoting a holding.

Every case cited here has been checked to exist — the citation resolves and names the right parties. The propositions attributed to each case have not been verified line by line against the judgment. Case names link through to the full judgment: read it before quoting a holding in an examination answer, and never carry a proposition from notes into court on trust.

Two topics, one theme. Collective management and the Copyright Board are both about how copyright is administered once the rights exist: who licenses, at what price, and who settles disputes. February 2025 set “Copyright Board” as a short note. Answer it in the past tense and end with the present forum.

1. Why collective management

A radio station plays thousands of songs a week; a restaurant plays music all day. Neither can negotiate with every composer, lyricist and record label, and no individual composer can monitor every user. A collective management organisation (CMO) pools rights from many owners, issues blanket licences to users at published tariffs, collects fees, and distributes them according to use. It lowers transaction costs for both sides. The cost is market power: a CMO is a near monopoly in its repertoire, which is why every legal system regulates it, through copyright law, competition law, or both.

2. The Indian scheme: sections 33 to 36A

Registration and the bar on unregistered business

Section 33(1) provides that no person or association shall commence or carry on the business of issuing or granting licences in respect of any work in which copyright subsists, or in respect of the rights of performers, except under or in accordance with a registration under section 33(3). A proviso preserves the owner’s right to grant licences for his own works in his individual capacity, consistently with his obligations as a member of a society. Only one society is ordinarily registered for each class of work.

The 2012 amendment made registration valid for five years, renewable on the basis of the society’s performance (section 33(3A)), and required existing societies to re-register. The Copyright Rules, 2013 set out the procedure.

Governance and tariffs

Authors in control. Societies must be controlled and administered by authors and owners together, and the 2012 changes require authors to have an equal say with owners in the governing body (section 35).
Tariff scheme (section 33A). Every society must publish its tariff scheme. A person aggrieved may appeal to the Commercial Court, which may make orders to remove unreasonable elements.
Distribution. Fees collected are distributed among owners in proportion to actual use, after deducting administrative expenses (section 34).
Returns and supervision by the Registrar of Copyrights (section 36), with power in the Central Government to cancel registration for mismanagement (section 33(4)).
Performers (section 36A): the provisions apply to performers’ rights.

The registered societies

The Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS) administers musical and literary works; it was re-registered under the 2012 scheme. The Indian Singers’ Rights Association (ISRA) administers performers’ rights of singers, and the Indian Reprographic Rights Organisation (IRRO) has licensed photocopying of literary works. Phonographic Performance Ltd. (PPL), the society of record labels, did not continue under the new registration scheme, and since then has licensed as assignee of its members’ rights. Whether that is lawful under section 33(1) has been litigated repeatedly.

The section 33(1) question

In Leopold Cafe & Stores v. Novex Communications (Bombay High Court, 2014), a company acting as agent for music owners, issuing licences to hotels and restaurants without registration, was held to be carrying on the business that section 33(1) reserves to registered societies. Later decisions distinguished an entity that takes an assignment and licenses as owner, which the proviso permits. The result is that the bar can be avoided by structuring the arrangement as an assignment, which reduces the regulatory control that registration was meant to secure.

The policy debate. One view is that compulsory registration and tariff control are essential because a CMO has monopoly power. The other is that the regime has driven rights out of collective management and into private licensing by assignees, which escapes tariff review entirely. An LL.M. answer should refer to the EU Collective Rights Management Directive (2014/26/EU), which regulates transparency, governance and multi-territorial licensing of online music rights, and to the US system, where ASCAP and BMI operate under antitrust consent decrees and rates are set by a rate court. Indian law relies on registration under copyright law, with the Competition Act, 2002 in the background.

3. The Copyright Board: as it was

Composition (section 11, now omitted). A Chairman and not less than two and not more than fourteen other members, appointed by the Central Government. The Chairman had to be a person who was, had been, or was qualified to be, a Judge of a High Court. The Board sat in benches of at least three members, and could sit in different zones of the country.

Powers (section 12, now omitted). The powers of a civil court in summoning and enforcing attendance of witnesses, discovery and production of documents, receiving evidence on affidavit and issuing commissions. Its proceedings were deemed judicial proceedings.

Functions.

deciding whether a work had been published, and the date of publication (section 6);
disputes on assignment (section 19A);
compulsory licences for withheld works, orphan works and translations, and the statutory licences for cover versions and broadcasting (sections 31 to 32A);
appeals against tariffs of copyright societies (section 33A);
rectification of the Register of Copyrights (section 50) and appeals against orders of the Registrar (section 72).

The Board was not a court of infringement. Infringement suits went, as they still go, to the District Court or the High Court with original jurisdiction (section 62).

4. Abolition and the present forum

The Finance Act, 2017 merged the Copyright Board into the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), constituted under the Trade Marks Act, 1999.
The Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 abolished the IPAB. In the Copyright Act, the references to the Appellate Board were replaced by the Commercial Court (a Commercial Court or Commercial Division under the Commercial Courts Act, 2015), and rectification and appeals from the Registrar were sent to the High Court. The Delhi and Madras High Courts have set up Intellectual Property Divisions to hear this work.

The justification offered was the poor functioning of tribunals: vacancies, delay and questions about independence that the Supreme Court had raised in a series of cases on tribunal appointments. The criticism is that specialist adjudication of tariff and licence questions has moved to general commercial courts, which do not have economic expertise in rate-setting.

How this is examined

For a short note on the Copyright Board, give composition, powers and functions in two short paragraphs and the 2017 and 2021 changes in a third. For an essay on copyright societies, cover the rationale, sections 33 to 36A, the 2012 reforms, the section 33(1) problem, and the comparison with the EU and US.

Now try the real questions: Law of Copyrights past question papers.