You upload a track. It gets played. Some money arrives, months later, and it is smaller than the number in your head. The instinctive conclusion is that streaming pays badly. Sometimes that is true. Far more often, in India, what has happened is that you were paid for one of the three things your song generates and never registered for the other two.
The audience is not the problem. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India counted 1,087.50 million broadband subscriptions at the end of June 2026, including 1,001.50 million excluding machine-to-machine connections. Indian music reaches a listener base most countries cannot imagine. The money reaching the person who wrote the song is a separate question with a separate answer, and that answer is written into the Copyright Act, 1957.
Working this out takes months, and it takes them before the first meaningful payment arrives. During that stretch, an app such as I am Beezy pays for viewing content — videos, articles, advertisements — into your usual payment method, which is not a music career but does cover the cost of running one while the royalty side is still being set up.
Why does a single song generate three different payments in India?
Because Indian copyright law treats a song as several pieces of property that happen to arrive at your ear together. Each piece has an owner, and each owner is paid separately.
The recording and the song underneath it are different property
There is the sound recording — the specific master file that was released — and there is the underlying musical work and the lyrics. A label or distributor typically deals with the first. The second belongs, at the outset, to the composer and the lyricist. Somebody paying to use your song may need permission for both, and a payment for one does not settle the other.
The performer has a right in their own name
Section 38 of the Copyright Act, 1957 gives a performer a right arising from appearing in or engaging in a performance. That means the singer or session musician on a record is not simply a supplier of a service; they hold something the Act recognises. Whether it has been assigned away, and on what terms, is a contract question — but it exists before any contract is signed.
Which body collects which stream
India channels this through registered copyright societies. Section 33 of the Act says that no person may carry on the business of issuing licences in copyrighted works except under a registration granted by the Central Government, and a proviso adds that the business of licensing literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works incorporated in a cinematograph film or sound recording "shall be carried out only through a copyright society duly registered under this Act". In practice, a songwriter's side is administered through the Indian Performing Right Society, and the recording side is licensed through PPL India. Neither collects for you unless you are a member.
What the Copyright Act guarantees you whatever the contract says
This is the part most new artists never read, and it is unusually protective. Section 19 sets out how an assignment of copyright works, and it does far more than require a signature.
An assignment must be in writing and must state the money
Section 19(1) says no assignment is valid unless it is in writing signed by the assignor or their authorised agent. Section 19(2) requires the assignment to identify the work and specify the rights assigned, the duration and the territorial extent. Section 19(3) requires it to specify the royalty and any other consideration payable to the author. A document that hands over your song without naming a royalty is not a complete assignment under the Act.
Silence has defaults, and they run in the author's favour
Three sub-sections do the quiet work. Under section 19(4), if the assignee does not exercise the assigned rights within one year of the assignment, the assignment in respect of those rights is deemed to have lapsed, unless otherwise specified. Under section 19(5), if no period is stated, the assignment is deemed to be for five years. Under section 19(6), if no territory is stated, it is presumed to extend within India. A shelved song and an unbounded worldwide grant are therefore both narrower than they look.
The share nobody can make you sign away
Sections 19(9) and 19(10) are the ones worth memorising. Where a work is assigned for the making of a cinematograph film, the assignment does not affect the author's right to claim an equal share of royalties for use of the work in any form other than the communication of the work to the public along with the film in a cinema hall. Where the assignment is to make a sound recording that is not part of a film, the author keeps the right to an equal share of royalties for any utilisation of the work. (Source: Copyright Act, 1957, sections 19, 33 and 38, text published by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks on ipindia.gov.in, consulted 16 August 2026.)
| If the contract is silent on | What the Act supplies | Section |
|---|---|---|
| The royalty payable | The assignment must specify it | 19(3) |
| Whether the rights are used | Lapse after one year of non-use | 19(4) |
| The duration | Deemed five years | 19(5) |
| The territory | Presumed India only | 19(6) |
| Non-cinema use of a film song | Equal share of royalties to the author | 19(9) |
Where does the money actually leak on its way to a new artist?
Almost never in one dramatic theft. It goes in three or four ordinary places, each of which looks reasonable in isolation.
The distributor's cut, and the word recoupment
A distributor or label takes a percentage, which is disclosed and negotiable. What is less visible is recoupment: advances, video costs, marketing spend and sometimes distribution fees are recovered from your share before anything reaches you. An artist can be technically earning and receiving nothing for a year, entirely within the terms they signed. Ask for the recoupment balance in writing every quarter, and ask which costs are recoupable and which are the label's own.
Not being a member of the body that collects your side
This is the most common and the most expensive. Public performance and broadcast income for the songwriter's side is collected by the society, not by your distributor, and it is only allocated to registered members with registered works. An artist whose songs are streaming well and who has never registered a work is leaving an entire revenue line uncollected, and there is no automatic mechanism that will find them later.
Setting honest expectations for the first two years
The useful planning question is not how much a stream pays. It is which of the several income lines you are actually connected to.
There is no published Indian rate per stream, and anyone quoting one is guessing
No Indian regulator publishes a per-stream rate, and the platforms do not publish one either; what a stream pays depends on the territory, the subscription tier, the platform's revenue in the period and the share your contract gives you. Any article that hands you a rupee figure per thousand streams has invented it or copied a foreign estimate. Build your plan on the structure instead: how many income lines you are registered for, and what percentage of each reaches you.
The money that is not streaming money
Public performance in shops, restaurants, gyms and events, and broadcast use, are licensed separately by the societies. Section 31D of the Act also provides a statutory licence for broadcasting literary and musical works and sound recordings, which is a route for broadcasters rather than a payment you negotiate — but it is a reminder that broadcast use is a regulated stream with its own money attached. For a working artist in India, this side is often larger and steadier than streaming, and it is the side that requires membership paperwork rather than promotion.
| Income line | Who pays it | What you must have done first |
|---|---|---|
| Streaming of the recording | Distributor or label | Signed a distribution agreement |
| Songwriter share of streaming and broadcast | Copyright society | Membership plus registered works |
| Public performance of the recording | Recording society licensing venues | The recording registered by its owner |
| Synchronisation in film or advertising | Negotiated directly | Clear ownership and a written assignment |
| Live performance fee | Promoter or venue | A contract and an invoice |
Paying for the first releases with I am Beezy
The gap between spending on music and earning from it is measured in quarters, not weeks. Studio time, mixing, mastering, artwork and distribution fees all land before the first statement does, and the amounts are small individually and awkward in aggregate.
What the platform pays, converted into rupees
I am Beezy pays for consulting content, and its reference range across the platform is 5 to 15 euros a day. Run that through the Reserve Bank of India reference rate of ₹109.7165 to the euro on 4 August 2026 and you land at roughly ₹550 to ₹1,650 a day; the rupee floats, so pull a live rate off the Reserve Bank's home page before treating that as today's figure. Payment reaches your usual payment method.
Why this matters for a rights negotiation
An artist who needs an advance takes the terms attached to it. An artist who can cover a release cycle without one negotiates on the clauses that matter — duration, territory, recoupment — rather than on the size of the cheque. Having a small independent inflow changes which conversation you are having.
What should you do before releasing the next track?
Three things, in order. Read whatever you are being asked to sign against section 19 and check that it names a royalty, a duration and a territory; if it does not, the Act's defaults apply and you should know what they are. Join the society that administers the songwriter side and register every work, including the ones already released. And ask your distributor, in writing, for the recoupment balance and the list of recoupable costs.
Do those and the money still may not be large in year one, but it will be arriving on every line you are entitled to instead of one. And while the royalty side is being built, an account on I am Beezy puts a small regular amount alongside it, which is what makes it possible to say no to an advance you would regret.
