APRA AMCOS consists of Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), both copyright management organisations or copyright collectives which jointly represent over 100,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in Australia and New Zealand. The two organisations work together to license public performances and administer performance, communication and reproduction rights on behalf of their members, who are creators of musical works, aiming to ensure fair payments to members and to defend their rights under the Australian Copyright Act (1968).
APRA, which formed in 1926, represents songwriters, composers, and music publishers, providing businesses with a range of licences to use copyrighted music. This covers music that is communicated or performed publicly including on radio, television, online, live gigs in pubs and clubs etc. APRA distributes the royalties from these licence fees back to their composer, songwriter and music publisher members and overseas affiliates.
AMCOS, which formed in 1979, is responsible for licensing musical works to third parties who reproduce music via CD, DVD, vinyl recording, downloading, streaming or other digital means of reproduction, issuing what are known as mechanical rights and distributing mechanical royalties to writers and publishers of music and overseas affiliates.
In 1997 the two societies formed an alliance; since then, APRA has managed the day-to-day operations of the AMCOS business, but each has its own board of directors, elected from and by their own membership. They jointly present the APRA Awards each year.
Description
The associations' national and NSW/ACT state/territory offices are located in Sydney, and the New Zealand office in Auckland. There are state/territory offices in Melbourne (for Victoria and Tasmania); Brisbane, Queensland; Adelaide, South Australia; Perth, Western Australia; and Darwin, Northern Territory. There are also international representatives in London, UK, Nashville, Tennessee, Los Angeles and New York.
APRA is a member and AMCOS associate member of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), and AMCOS is a member of the Bureau International de l'Edition Mécanique (BIEM), the international mechanical rights coordinating organisation.
APRA AMCOS adheres to a voluntary Code of Conduct for Collecting Societies which was introduced in 2002.
How it works
It can be difficult or almost impossible to license copyright on an individual basis. The composer of the music, upon joining APRA, assigns their performing and communication right to the organisation. They can also choose whether or not they want AMCOS to administer their reproduction right (excluding print music) including for what purposes. By acting as a link between the users and creators of copyright material, collecting societies like APRA and AMCOS provide a simple means for assisting users to comply with their copyright obligations as well as ensuring that the creators or copyright owners are paid for the use of their work.
History
APRA
APRA was established in 1926 by a number of companies, to represent the interests of Australasian music copyright holders, and to manage the performance and communication rights of its members. According to the Copyright Act, public performances of music include music played in pubs, clubs, fitness clubs, shops, cinemas, or at festivals, whether performed live, from radio or television. Communication of music covers music broadcast by TV or radio broadcasters, or accessed via the internet.
In 1929, commercial radio broadcasters in Sydney and Melbourne paid APRA £7 a week for royalties, with music broadcasts limited to 66 hours a week. This arrangement broke down in 1931, with APRA banning the playing of records on air. The Australian Federation of Commercial Broadcasting Stations was established in that year to resolve royalty and copyright related issues and as a result, member broadcasters agreed to pay a fixed sum for broadcasting rights.
With the introduction of the Australian Copyright Act 1968, APRA extended its services to any Australian business with copyright obligations. Demand for the service increased steadily over the following thirty years and by 2005, APRA represented the interests of 28,000 members within Australasia, and about two million creative artists and publishers from elsewhere in the world, and gathered $146 million in royalty payments, of which $127 million was distributed to copyright holders.