The ACCC is making the process of licensing music from the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) more transparent for businesses that use and pay for music and the songwriters who are members of APRA.
Better information about how fees are calculated and used
The ACCC has granted a conditional reauthorisation to APRA. Under the authorisation APRA must meet a number of extra conditions.
These conditions seek to limit APRA’s market power, improve transparency and help protect both songwriters and small businesses. The authorisation is for four years.
Under the authorisation, APRA will be required to publish information about:
- how it calculates the rates for the licences it offers
- the reasons for fee increases greater than CPI
- annual revenue and operating costs
- the royalties it pays to its members.
APRA will need to continue ‘Resolution Pathways’, an alternative dispute resolution scheme. This scheme is designed to assist both the creators of music and the users of music to resolve disputes with APRA.
About APRA and the ACCC authorisation process
APRA’s members assign the rights relating to their musical works to APRA. This means that individual songwriters do not have to independently collect royalties from each business that uses their works.
APRA holds the rights for a large number of musical works including almost all commercially popular works played or performed in Australia. Because APRA acts on behalf of songwriters who may be considered to be each other’s competitors, its arrangements may risk breaching competition laws unless an authorisation is in place.
The ACCC had previously granted authorisation for APRA’s licencing agreements. In December 2018 APRA sought re-authorisation to continue the agreements.
The ACCC received a large number of submissions during the consultation process, which highlighted concerns regarding:
- the licencing fees charged by APRA
- the lack of transparency
- the lack of accountability.
The conditions the ACCC has imposed are aimed at addressing concerns about transparency and accountability. However, the ACCC does not have a role in determining or approving APRA’s licence fees.
More information is available in the ACCC media release. A copy of the determination is available on the ACCC public register.
About APRA AMCOS
APRA AMCOS is a music rights organisation representing over 100,000 members who are songwriters, composers and music publishers. APRA and its members, hold performing rights for almost all commercially popular music played or performed in Australia, and earn royalties from those rights. In most cases, members assign these rights on an exclusive basis to APRA, which collects royalties by imposing licence fees on users of that music.
For many businesses that play music, including Pilates studios, the simplest solution for inhouse music is to obtain and pay for a licence from APRA. The fees from these licences are then distributed by APRA to its members.
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