New Delhi: With the world under lockdown battling the COVID pandemic, music as an art form has brought solace to millions of people across the globe. Be it any genre – jazz, rock, pop, classical, folk, or country, music has helped people and communities come together and worked as a soothing balm on the weariness resulting from a prolonged lockdown and helped people deal with these difficult times in a positive way. Unfortunately, the music community while trying to spread cheer everywhere has also not been left unimpacted.
The Indian Performing Right Society Ltd (“IPRS”)had in April announced a significant financial package to help thousands of authors and composers address their essential needs during the initial stages of the lockdown. IPRS has now announced the release of an additional tranche of an emergency relief fund for its members. The fund will support around3500 authors and composers in the music fraternity, across the country, whose livelihoods have been deeply impacted by COVID19. IPRS is taking all required measures to facilitate the distribution of the relief fund on an urgent basis.
Javed Akhtar, Chairman of the IPRS said, “IPRS was established with the objective of helping the creative music fraternity grow and flourish and this holds true now more than ever when our community is in dire need because of these unprecedented times. Our initial financial assistance package in April 2020 brought much-needed relief to the community and we hope the additional money that is being released now will help again to provide necessary respite at this moment. I would humbly urge everyone to come forward and help others in this time of distress in whatever capacity they can. It is only if we come together and stand united against this crisis that humanity will be able to overcome this situation.”
Renowned lyricist and director of the IPRS, Sameer Anjaan, said, “The pandemic has been an extremely challenging time for everyone. I am very heartened that IPRS has taken this initiative to support the members and help those people who have been deeply impacted. This is the least that we could have done to support our community at such times.”
Vikram Mehra, Managing Director of Saregama and Board Member of IPRS, said, “All the member music labels are standing fully behind IPRS’s decision to extend all possible help to our lyricists and music composers, who are the foundation on which the music industry is built.”
Rakesh Nigam, CEO of the IPRS said, “As a responsible copyright society, it’s our duty to extend our support to the music industry in whatever way possible. We are trying our best to amplify our efforts in providing financial assistance to our members and ensure they have some income available to them while all other streams of earning a livelihood have temporarily dried up.”
