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 emergency relief fund for its members. The fund will support around 3500 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 distribution of the relief fund on an urgent basis.
Javed Akhtar, Chairman of the IPRS said, “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.”
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.”
