Mint Explainer | What the Calcutta HC ruling means for caller tune royalties

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: The few seconds of music you hear while waiting for someone to answer a phone call is copyrighted intellectual property, and telecom operators offering caller tunes may now need separate licences and royalty payments to lyricists and composers after a recent Calcutta High Court ruling.On 8 May, the Calcutta High Court ruled against Vodafone Idea in its long-running dispute with the Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS), holding that telecom operators cannot offer caller tunes and ringtones solely on the basis of licences obtained from music labels.Mint explains the ruling and what it could mean for telecom operators and digital platforms.The dispute centres on whether telecom operators offering caller tunes and ringtones require separate licences from lyricists and composers, apart from licences obtained from music labels such as Saregama.Telecom companies treat caller tunes as a value-added service, a paid add-on beyond regular calling and SMS facilities that generates additional revenue and improves user engagement.Vodafone Idea signed agreements with Saregama in 2014 to use songs for caller tune services. However, IPRS argued that while music labels may own sound recordings, lyricists and composers retain separate rights over the underlying literary and musical works under the Copyright Act, particularly after the 2012 amendments that strengthened creators’ royalty rights.In 2018, Vodafone Idea approached the Calcutta High Court challenging IPRS’s claim that telecom operators required separate licences and royalty payments for using songs as caller tunes and ringtones.