Managing Broadcast Rights: Strategies for Broadcasting Organisations

Every time a television channel replays a recorded broadcast, or a radio station streams content online, a complex web of rights quietly governs what is permissible and what is not. Broadcasting organisations in India hold a distinct set of protections under the Copyright Act, 1957 – rights that exist independently of copyright in the underlying content. But holding these rights is only half the story. How a broadcaster actually manages, transfers, and enforces them in practice is where legal theory meets commercial reality.

What are broadcast reproduction rights? 🔗

Section 37 of the Copyright Act, 1957 grants every broadcasting organisation a special right called the broadcast reproduction right. This right is distinct from copyright – it is categorised as a neighbouring right or related right, recognising that broadcasters act as intermediaries between content creators and the public. Under this right, a broadcaster has the exclusive authority to re-broadcast its broadcast, charge the public for access to it, make sound or visual recordings of it, reproduce those recordings, and sell or commercially rent such recordings.

This protection lasts for 25 years from the beginning of the calendar year following the year in which the broadcast was first made. So a broadcast made in 2024 enjoys protection until the end of 2049. Any person who performs these acts without the broadcaster’s licence is deemed to have infringed the broadcast reproduction right.

No registration required – rights arise automatically 🔗

One of the most practically significant aspects of broadcast reproduction rights is that they arise automatically. Unlike trademarks or patents, there is no mandatory registration process that a broadcasting organisation must complete before its broadcast reproduction right is recognised. The moment a broadcast is made, the right attaches to it. This absence of formality keeps the system efficient, particularly for broadcasters who air content continuously and at high volume. It also means that the right cannot be weakened merely because a broadcaster failed to file any paperwork – what matters is the act of broadcasting itself.

How broadcast reproduction rights are administered 🔗

While rights arise automatically, administering them – that is, deciding how others may use the broadcast and on what terms – requires deliberate action. Under Section 39A of the Copyright Act, several provisions that apply to copyright in general are extended, with necessary adaptations, to broadcast reproduction rights as well. These include provisions on assignment (Section 18), licensing (Sections 30 and 30A), and the framework for copyright societies (Sections 33, 33A, 34, 35, and 36). This means a broadcasting organisation has three main channels through which to administer its rights:

1. Assignment 🔗

Assignment involves the transfer of broadcast reproduction rights, wholly or partially, to another person or entity. Under Section 18 of the Copyright Act (applied via Section 39A), an assignment must be in writing and must specify the rights transferred, the duration, the territorial extent, and the royalty or consideration payable. If the assignee does not exercise the rights within one year of the assignment, those rights are deemed to have lapsed – a provision designed to prevent hoarding of rights without productive use. Assignment is particularly relevant when a broadcaster licenses its archive of recorded broadcasts to a media aggregator or streaming platform, transferring the right to further exploit that content.

2. Licensing 🔗

Licensing is the more common and flexible route. Rather than transferring rights permanently, a broadcaster can grant a licence allowing another party to use the broadcast to a defined extent, for a specified period and purpose. Licences can be exclusive or non-exclusive. Section 30, applied through Section 39A, enables the owner of broadcast reproduction rights to grant licences on mutually agreed terms. Crucially, Section 39A contains an important proviso: where copyright or performer’s right also subsists in the work that has been broadcast, no licence to reproduce the broadcast takes effect without the consent of the copyright owner or performer as well. This reflects the layered nature of rights in a broadcast – a broadcaster cannot simply authorise reproduction of its broadcast if that broadcast itself contains works protected by separate copyright.

3. Administration through copyright societies 🔗

Broadcasting organisations can also delegate the administration of their rights to a copyright society registered under Section 33 of the Copyright Act. In India, copyright societies function as collective management organisations (CMOs) that issue licences, collect royalties, and distribute them to rights holders. Prominent examples include the Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS), which administers rights in musical and literary works, and Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL), which manages rights in sound recordings for communication to the public, including broadcast. For large broadcasters dealing with thousands of pieces of content, routing rights management through a copyright society is far more efficient than negotiating individual licences.

The layered rights problem: why broadcasters must secure rights before broadcasting 🔗

A broadcast does not exist in a vacuum. When a television channel airs a film, that single transmission involves multiple layers of copyright: the screenplay, the musical score, the lyrics, the sound recordings, the performances of actors and singers, and the cinematographic film itself. The broadcaster’s own broadcast reproduction right sits on top of all these pre-existing rights – but it does not replace or override them.

Section 39A(2) makes this explicit: the broadcast reproduction right does not affect the separate copyright in any work in respect of which the broadcast is made. Furthermore, Section 39A also provides that broadcast reproduction right will not subsist at all in a broadcast if that broadcast is itself an infringement of copyright in any underlying work. This is a critical safeguard – a broadcaster cannot build a valid reproduction right on top of an unlicensed use of someone else’s content.

This means that before a broadcaster can even think about licensing its broadcast reproduction rights to others, it must first ensure that it has properly cleared all the rights in the content being broadcast. In practice, this involves obtaining licences from copyright societies like IPRS for musical and literary works, and from PPL or similar organisations for sound recordings. When a radio station plays Bollywood songs, for instance, it must secure a separate licence from IPRS (covering the compositions and lyrics) and from PPL (covering the sound recordings). The Bombay High Court has confirmed that IPRS is entitled to collect royalties from FM radio broadcasters independently of any amounts paid to PPL – meaning both licences are independently mandatory, not interchangeable.

Statutory licensing under Section 31D 🔗

Where voluntary negotiation proves difficult, the Copyright Act also provides a statutory licensing mechanism. Section 31D allows any broadcasting organisation that wishes to communicate a work to the public by broadcast or performance to obtain a statutory licence by giving prior notice and paying royalties at rates fixed by the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). This is particularly relevant for broadcasters who cannot reach an agreement with copyright owners on commercial terms. The statutory licence route ensures that broadcasters are not completely blocked from accessing content, while still guaranteeing that creators receive royalties. However, there remains ongoing debate about whether online streaming and OTT platforms fall within the scope of “broadcasting organisations” for the purpose of Section 31D – a question that has significant implications for how digital platforms administer content rights in India.

The collaborative character of broadcasting rights 🔗

What emerges from this framework is a picture of copyright in the broadcasting industry as fundamentally collaborative. No single party – whether a content creator, a performer, or a broadcaster – holds a monopoly over the entire chain of rights in a broadcast. Each stakeholder has a distinct, legally recognised right, and the exploitation of a broadcast requires consent or licence at multiple levels. Copyright societies serve as the infrastructure that makes this collaboration practically workable at scale, pooling rights, issuing licences efficiently, and ensuring that royalties flow back to creators without requiring individual negotiations for every use.

For broadcasting organisations, this means that rights management is not simply a matter of asserting their own broadcast reproduction rights – it is an ongoing process of maintaining proper licences from content owners, performers, and copyright societies, while simultaneously managing how others may access and use their own broadcasts. The legal architecture under the Copyright Act, 1957, built around sections 37, 39, and 39A, is designed to hold this balance together.

What do you think? Given that a broadcaster’s reproduction right does not subsist if the underlying broadcast infringes copyright, how should broadcasters build internal compliance systems to verify rights clearance before going on air? And as OTT platforms and traditional broadcasters increasingly converge, should the law draw a clearer distinction between “broadcasting organisations” and digital streaming services for the purpose of statutory licensing?

References

1. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1244879/
2. https://www.quickcompany.in/articles/rights-of-broadcasting-organization-under-the-copyright-act-1957
3. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/138134998/
4. https://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/legislation/details/2396
5. https://lawbhoomi.com/copyright-societies/
6. https://iprs.org/all-about-licensing/
7. https://www.compliancecalendar.in/learn/difference-between-ppl-and-iprs-for-music-license-in-india
8. https://iprs.org/choose-your-license/
9. https://www.thequint.com/explainers/iprs-to-collect-royalty-from-fm-radio-broadcasters-bombay-high-court-judgement-for-music-authors
10. https://legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-4851-internet-broadcasting-under-the-copyright-act-1957.html