FAQs

The Ivors Academy of Music Creators is the trading name of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA). We are the independent trade body for songwriters and composers in the UK.

The Ivors Academy office is at 1 Upper James Street, London, W1F 9DE.

Membership of The Ivors Academy is exclusively for music creators. To be eligible for membership, you must be a member of PRS for Music or another recognised music collecting society, or have comparable grand rights income or appropriate qualifications as deemed by our Board from time to time.

Standard Membership is for songwriters and composers who do not yet meet professional member status (previously called provisional members). Whether established in your career or just beginning, if you are ambitious about developing your craft and passionate about the rights of music creators, join us.

Professional Membership is for songwriters and composers who are recognised by their peers as exceptionally talented, and who have experienced consistent commercial success over at least three years. To be eligible for Professional Membership you must be a voting member (previously called full or associate membership) of PRS for Music or another PRO.

Standard Membership costs £92 per year (or £96 per year if you choose to pay monthly, at £8 per month). Academy Membership costs £166 per year (or £168 per year if you choose to pay monthly, at £14 per month). For those aged 24 or younger, we have an Under 25 discounted Standard Membership, costing £50 per year.

We offer discounted Standard Membership for applicants aged 18 to 24; our Under 25 Standard Membership costs £50 per year.

If there is a financial barrier preventing you from joining The Ivors Academy, you may wish to considering applying for The Ivors Academy Membership Bursary Scheme. This bursary is provided by The Ivors Academy Trust from a fund bequeathed by the late composer and creators’ rights campaigner David Ferguson. For any questions regarding membership, please email membership@ivorsacademy.com

Your membership starts from the date we receive your first payment contribution. If you choose to pay your membership by PayPal, then we will receive your payment immediately, and you will receive a welcome email with your membership number then.

If you choose to pay by Direct Debit, it will be a while longer before we receive your payment, and before your membership becomes active. If you join us before the 16th of a given month, your first payment will be collected on the 28th of that month, when you will become an active member. If you join after the 16th of the month, your first payment won’t be collected until the 28th of the following month, and so your membership will not officially begin until then.

If you have recently joined us and chose to pay by Direct Debit, and would like to access membership services and member events before your membership becomes active, please contact memberservices@ivorsacademy.com

Please note that the insurance offered as part of our membership package cannot be used before your membership is live and the first payment has been received.

Membership, whether Standard or Academy, needs to be renewed annually.

Joint membership is available for Direct Debit and Stripe Credit Card payments but excludes PRS for Music membership payments.

Joint membership is not available in conjunction with any other discount or offer. Under 25 memberships are excluded from the joint membership offer.

Joint membership is only available on renewal of your current IA membership or when joining The Ivors Academy with an existing full price MU or MPG membership.

Members must have a full price membership of either the IA, MU or MPG to qualify for a joint membership. Members will receive an immediate 25% discount off the second membership but will also be eligible for an ongoing 25% discount off the full price membership upon annual renewal of that membership.

Currently, the joint membership offer is only in conjunction with members of the Musicians’ Union and the Music Producers Guild.

Visit the Joint Membership page for full details of the offer.

1. Membership of the Academy works on an annual basis. You can pay your annual membership fee over instalments but there will always be an annual renewal date when your membership will either automatically renew or you will need to pay for another year’s membership, depending on the option you have chosen.
2. You will be notified 14 days in advance of renewal that your renewal date is approaching. On the renewal date you will be notified that payment has been taken.
3. If you cancel your membership, your membership will expire at the next renewal date and you are not entitled to a refund on any subscription paid. To cancel you must give us written notice: membership@ivorsacademy.com.
4. If you cancel within the first 14 day period of your membership, your statutory rights apply, and we will refund your full membership fee, as long as you have not taken advantage of any membership benefits within the 14 day period.
5. If you pay via Direct Debit and do not wish to renew your membership, you are required to give us written notice of this at-least 15 days before your next payment by direct debit to allow enough time to stop your next payment.
6. If you have outstanding membership fees due to the Academy, we reserve the right to suspend your membership and all membership benefits, including access to the legal service and your insurance coverage.

An Ivor Novello Award is an award which recognises creative excellence in contemporary songwriting and composition. At its core is the principal of peer recognition as award categories are decided by music creators working in the particular award category’s field.

First presented in 1956 an Ivor Novello Award is named in honour of Ivor Novello, Britain’s most successful and distinguished theatrical composer at the time.

The statuette, designed in 1955 by Hazel Underwood, is a representation of Euterpe, the Greek muse of singing and lyric poetry. The solid bronze statuettes are cast and hand finished in the UK and weigh 5lb, 3oz each.

The Ivors with Amazon Music is the annual awards ceremony when Ivor Novello Awards are presented to recognise and celebrate creative excellence by British and Irish songwriters and screen composers. It is the Academy’s oldest ceremony, having taken place every year since 1956.

Further details about the current presentation of awards at The Ivors can be found here.

Central to what makes it so special, an Ivor Novello Award is a peer-recognition award at heart. The nominated award categories are judged by individual panels of established songwriters and screen composers, with the exception of PRS for Music Most Performed Work which is a statistical category based on data held by the award’s title sponsor, PRS for Music. The gift of the Academy awards are chosen by the Awards Committee, a sub-committee of The Ivors Academy Board, which is also exclusively populated by songwriters and screen composers.

The Ivors Composer Awards is the awards ceremony at which Ivor Novello Awards are presented to celebrate contemporary UK classical, jazz and sound art. Founded in 2003, The Ivors Composer Awards were known as the British Composer Awards until 2019.

Central to what makes it so special, an Ivor Novello Award is a peer-recognition award at heart. The nominated award categories are judged by individual panels of established classical and jazz composers, sound artists and practitioners within contemporary new music. The gift of the Academy awards are chosen by the Awards Committee, a sub-committee of The Ivors Academy Board, which is also exclusively populated by songwriters and composers.

The Rising Star Award is an Ivor Novello Award category introduced to The Ivors 2020. The Rising Star Award honours young British or Irish songwriting talent who demonstrate exceptional potential and ambition. In addition to receiving an Ivor Novello Award at the awards ceremony, the nominees also receive mentorship from an Ivors Academy member.

The Ivors is when Ivor Novello Awards are presented to celebrate British and Irish written songs and original music composed for feature films, video games and television broadcasts.

The Academy presents a second awards ceremony, The Ivors Composer Awards, where Ivor Novello Awards celebrate classical music, jazz composition and sound art. Entries for this ceremony open in May. To ensure your music receives appropriate peer review please wait and enter your music into this ceremony instead.

The overriding criteria for Ivor Novello Award consideration is that the songwriter or composer is a British or Irish national. For some categories residency also counts and in these instances you need to have been ordinarily resident in the UK during the entire award year. This is because a founding principal of the award was to celebrate British and Irish songwriting and composing talent.

For our competitive musical work categories, the work itself must have at least 33.3% British or Irish writing interest to qualify.

All music works must also have been commercially released or broadcast in the UK for the first time from 1 January to 31 December 2022 inclusive.

There is additional criteria for each category so please read the rules in full before preparing an entry.

You need to be an Under 25 Standard Member to enter the Rising Star Award.
You do not need to be a member to enter the musical works categories. Ivors Academy members do receive a discount on the administration fee.

Yes. Anyone can enter an eligible submission for consideration including the songwriter or composer themselves.

The Rising Star Award is free to enter. You must be an Under 25 member of The Ivors Academy and we have bursaries if you face financial barriers. Find out more about Under 25 membership and bursaries.

There is an administration fee of £100 + VAT (£120) per musical work entered into Best Album, Best Contemporary Song, Best Song Musically and Lyrically, Best Original Film Score, Best Television Soundtrack and Best Original Video Game Score.

Yes, if you are the songwriter or composer with a qualifying interest in the work and a member of The Ivors Academy you receive a discount.

Standard Members receive a 25% discount on the administration fee. Professional Tier members receive a 50% discount.

You will need to submit your membership number at the point of entry to take advantage of the discount. If you are unsure of your membership status, please contact the Membership Team to check.

Membership bursaries are offered by The Ivors Academy Trust should there be a financial barrier to joining the Academy. Further information about this can be found here.

Yes.

There is a limit of three works by the same songwriter or songwriting partnership that can be entered into categories Best Album, Best Contemporary Song and Best Song Musically and Lyrically in any one year.

Where the same songwriter or songwriting partnership has released multiple albums or songs across the year the Academy encourages entrants to choose those which demonstrate the highest level of songwriting craft for consideration.

There is a limit of three works by any one composer that can be entered into Best Original Film Score, Video Game Score and Television Soundtrack in any one year.

Where a composer has scored across more than three films, games or broadcasts in any one year the Academy encourages entrants to choose those which demonstrate the highest level or compositional craft for consideration.

Yes, as long as you are still under 25.

No. Works which have previously been entered for Ivor Novello Award consideration (at either of our ceremonies: The Ivors or The Ivors Composer Awards) cannot be re-entered for the Awards.

The music must, as a minimum, be available to stream or purchase from all of the following major digital music service providers: Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music. The music may also be available to buy or stream in other formats.

The Ivor Novello Award for Best Album recognises long play albums, not extended plays. Albums in this context are defined as over 25 minutes or more than four songs.

No. The album must contain at least 75% original material; ‘original’ in this context is defined as a song copyright not previously released in the UK.

The ISWC (International Standard Musical Work Code) is an internationally recognised reference number for the identification of musical works.

The ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) is an internationally recognised reference number to identify recorded music tracks and music videos. Each ISRC code identifies a specific unique recording and can be permanently encoded into a product as a kind of digital fingerprint.

Your song will be assigned an ISWC by the relevant royalty collection society (PRS for Music in the UK) when it is correctly registered.

PPL are the sole appointed agency for generating ISRCs in the UK. The recording will be assigned a code at the point of registration.

Yes. Recordings that have an ISRC and ISWC will automatically go through to judging (if they fulfil all other criteria).

We expect commercial recordings to have been assigned with both codes so the income generated by the musical work and recording is tracked and distributed correctly. The awards recognise songs and albums commercially released in the previous calendar year and as such there is an expectation they have been registered correctly at the relevant royalty collection society.

Recordings entered for the awards that do not have an ISRC and ISWC will need to provide evidence that the process for obtaining an ISRC and ISWC has commenced.

No. A song may only be submitted into either Best Contemporary Song or Best Song Musically and Lyrically and not both categories.

You should consider each category’s criteria and enter the song into the category they feel best reflects the songwriting. If in doubt, please contact the Awards Team for clarification. The Academy reserves the right to transfer a song from either category.

Please follow this link.

Yes. Titles exhibited theatrically as well as those distributed via VoD platforms are eligible.

The film must be 40mins or greater to meet our definition of a feature film.

No. You can only enter a musical work into one category in any given year.

If the music has been especially written to score the feature film, game or television broadcast it should be entered into the screen categories so it is judged by screen composers and reviewed in the context of the music against the visual material.

Please follow this link.

An extension of an existing game is not eligible for consideration as it is not the first time the game was commercially released to the UK general public.

The game must have been commercially released for the first time in the UK between 1 January and 31 December 2022. If the original platform version wasn’t released in the UK and the new platform version is, then it is eligible.

If the original platform release was commercially released in the UK then the game is ineligible and should have been submitted for consideration at The Ivors in the year of original release.

Our latest campaigns can always be found on our Current Campaigns page. Our campaigns relate to international IP law, digital technology, royalties payments, commissioning practices and more.

The Gold Badge was created by BASCA in 1974. It acknowledges a unique contribution to the UK music industry; individuals who inspire or support creativity in all its musical forms. Because success is rarely a solo achievement; we are often inspired by those who came before us, championed by broadcasters or commissioners, supported by managers, publishers or producers.

Academy Members of The Ivors Academy can nominate recipients for recognition. An Ivors Academy Gold Badge recognises outstanding individuals who have supported and inspired the UK songwriting and composing community.

On our Contact Us page, you’ll find all the information to contact The Ivors Academy by phone, email or post.

If you have questions about joining please contact our membership team: membership@ivorsacademy.com

Copydan Writing is a collective management organisation in Denmark which collects revenues for the reproduction (photocopying) of text and sheet music from Danish educational and religious establishments. As this right does not exist in UK law, the UK collection societies are unable to distribute this income. BASCA, trading as The Ivors Academy, is not a collection society but is acting as an agent for Copydan Writing in this territory.

Royalties are due to songwriters and composers whose works have been reproduced in Denmark by educational and religious establishments since 2015. Copydan supply the Academy with this information alongside the funds based on their own methods of measuring and allocating royalties to rightsholders.

These rightsholders may or may not be members of The Ivors Academy, there is absolutely no discrimination in our efforts to contact rightsholders based on membership of The Ivors Academy.

If you are a member of The Ivors Academy and are due any Copydan royalties, you will have heard from us. However, this is an ongoing agreement with Copydan, so if you have not earned any royalties thus far, you may in the future if your work is included in, for example, song books used in Danish schools. We will contact you regarding Copydan royalties as they come in annually.

If  you are not a member of The Ivors Academy, and have not heard from us, but believe you may be due royalties from Copydan for reproduction of your work as text/sheet music in Denmark in educational and religious establishments over the last five years, please get in touch at copydan@ivorsacademy.com

The Ivors Academy applies an administration fee to all the Copydan royalties payments it makes to rightsholders. For rightsholders who are not members of The Ivors Academy, this administration fee is 10%. For rightsholders who are members of The Ivors Academy, this administration fee is reduced to 8%.

The Ivors Academy charges an administration fee to cover its own expenses in distributing the funds – this includes the resource required to identify rightsholders who are due funds, contact them and ensure we have all required financial information.

Alongside the funds, Copydan provides The Ivors Academy with a breakdown of royalties due to rightsholders; sometimes this information specifies for which work/s, sometimes only the rightsholder. We cross-reference this information against various databases – primarily our own membership database and PRS for Music’s database – as well as wider desk research if required to identify rightsholders, contact them and confirm the correct bank account information to send funds to. We do this regularly throughout the year so that if there are any rightsholders we were unable to contact initially, we have subsequent effort and attempts to contact them and ensure their royalties are received.

It is the Academy’s responsibility to take all reasonable endeavours to contact the rightsholders who are due royalties payments in order to ensure their royalties are paid to them. We report details of these efforts back to Copydan; if after three years we are unable to contact the recipients then funds due to them become non-distributable revenue which the Academy is only entitled to then use on activity which will serve the general best interest of songwriters and composers in the UK.

Because the agreement we have entered into with Copydan is new and unprecedented, royalties for years prior to 2014 which were due to UK rightsholders have been absorbed by Copydan into its own funds which are invested in activity to serve the general best interest of music creators in Denmark.

In March 2019, Copydan transferred funds to The Ivors Academy for royalties due from the years 2015 through to 2018. The Ivors Academy will begin distributing these funds to rightsholders in June 2019.

Our first payment date will be Monday 24th June 2019. Provided we have all of your bank and tax residency information at least 5 days prior to this, your royalties payment will be made on this date. If we do not have all of your information by this time, your royalties will be paid on one the next soonest payment date at least 5 working days clear from when we receive all your information. These scheduled dates are: Monday 23rd September 2019; Monday 6th January 2020; Monday 23rd March 2020.

Looking ahead, Copydan will transfer funds to The Ivors Academy no later than 30th April in the year following the year of collection. For example, Copydan will transfer funds for 2019 royalties payments to The Ivors Academy by 30th April 2020. We will then distribute these funds from May 2020, with quarterly payment dates similar to those for the 2019-20 distribution year.

Depending on how you manage your own accounting and tax returns, you may need to raise an invoice to account for the income you’ve received for your Copydan royalties. In the first instance, please contact your accountant for advice on this if you have one.

If you need to raise an invoice for VAT purposes, please raise this with zero-rated VAT to:

Copydan Writing, Bryggervangen 8, 2.sal, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark

Danish VAT number: DK 18463504

You must include the following statement: “This supply is subject to the reverse charge.”

Send this invoice to copydan@ivorsacademy.com or by post to The Ivors Academy, The Ministry, 79 Borough Road, London SE1 1DN. Do not send your invoice directly to Copydan.