Indian Music Industry

The Indian Music Industry (IMI) is a trust that represents the recording industry distributors in India. It was founded on February 28, 1936 as Indian Phonographic Industry (IPI). Its the 2nd oldest music industry organization in the world that was involved in protecting copyrights of music producers and supporting growth of music entertainment industry.

In 1994, it was renamed as Indian Music Industry (IMI) and represented India at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). It is also registered with the West Bengal Societies Registration Act.

All major music labels in India are part of this association. Record companies like Saregama India Ltd. (HMV), Universal Music (India), Tips, Venus, Sony Music Entertainment (India), Crescendo, Virgin Records, Magnasound, Milestone, Times Music and several other prominent national and regional labels are part of the IMI. The IMI represents over 75 % of all legal music sales in India.

IMI has its registered office in Kolkata and Administrative office in Mumbai. It also has offices in New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and other major Indian cities working on the protection of rights of music producers and preventing music piracy.

It has also been instrumental in launching the IMMIES music awards in collaboration with MTV.

Criteria of certification levels

The Indian Music Industry has constituted different, prestigious awards to encourage and promote music. The approved scheme of gold/platinum disc standards effective for sound recordings of member companies released in one calendar year is as below:

• Sales of all types of carriers, whether vinyl records, audio cassettes, compact discs, MP3 compact discs, music videos (i.e. excluding home videos) or any other existing or future type of carrier is considered on the basis of one unit.
• If a sound recording contains a combination of two program, any program over half of its total duration can be weighted at 50%, of the sales of the sound recording of that program. Any program comprising less than half of the total duration of the sound recording will not be counted for the purpose of certification.
• Sales in domestic markets only will be considered for the calculation of sales of sound recording.
• The time-limit for achieving above sales in any category is one year from the release of the recording in India.
• Applications should be accompanied by a copy certified by the member’s chartered accountant stating the date of release & the number of units sold, along with a letter from the managing director or CEO.

Certification levels

India has most separate scales for music recording certification. Certifications are usually based on sales, like some other Asian countries. Like many other Asian countries, domestic repertoire accounted for more than 50% of Indian music market.

Current certification levels

Previous certification levels

Like many other countries, sales requirements of music recording in India reduced due to music piracy and declining sales. For example, prior to 2000, the sales requirements for Hindi film category (the most dominant music genre) is 500,000 copies and a million copies, respectively, for gold and platinum awards. It was later lowered to 250,000 and 500,000 copies, respectively. Previously, recordings in the national basic category is required to sold 100,000 and 200,000 copies, in order to achieve Gold and Platinum awards.

External links

• IMI