About Royalties and your licensing options

Licensing your work

As a copyright owner you have many options about how you sell (assign) or licence (rent-out) the rights to your work. You may decide to transfer rights to a publisher or licence other rights to another party. You cannot sell or licence the same work twice. If you have created work with other parties, any arrangements over rights will need agreement from all co-creators. You need to carefully consider the different options because some transfers can't be reversed. Seek legal advice before signing any contracts or agreements.

Royalties

Royalties are an agreed portion of the proceeds from the use of a work, paid to the creator or owner of a right in that work.

If you are an unpublished composer:

If you have not published your musical work, you need to consider what arrangements will best suit you. Do you want to earn royalties from the work? Are you more interested in having the work disseminated as widely as possible? Do you want greater control over the work? Do you have to get agreement from a co-creator?

Each publisher, record label, collecting society, website or download service will have their own terms and conditions about your rights and obligations under any agreements you make with them. These could be legally enforced, so seek advice before deciding what option is best.

If you are a published composer:

If you have an agreement with a music publisher about your music, any further arrangements you make with licensing your work or with collecting societies will be subject to the terms of that agreement. It may not cover all your works, or it may only relate to certain rights in that work.

You may already have arrangements with a record label about paying royalties directly to you. You would need to look at the terms of any agreements you have made to see what rights remain in the work

APRA-AMCOS

You can join APRA-AMCOS if you compose music or lyrics, are a music publisher, are an owner of copyright in a musical work, or if you are an arranger of musical works out of copyright. Membership is free. You must have at least one of your works performed or communicated to the public before you are eligible to join.

If you join APRA-AMCOS you assign the following rights to that collecting society, who will then collect royalties on your behalf:

right to perform your work in public (APRA)
rights to communicate your work/s online (APRA)
reproducing your musical works on CD or other audio format for sale to the public (AMCOS)
digital downloading your music from an online music service (AMCOS)
reproducing music in audiovisual formats, like DVD (AMCOS)
reproducing musical works in TV programs (AMCOS) or online to the public, such as in ringtones or web-casts (APRA).

You can choose what works and what rights you want APRA-AMCOS to administer for you. However, once you have assigned those rights you cannot licence those rights to anyone else without getting permission ('licence back') from APRA-AMCOS. This is sometimes called 'opt-out' and requires you to give 3 months notice in advance. For more information contact the Writer Services department at APRA-AMCOS.

To receive royalties you need to register your music with APRA-AMCOS and notify them of any performances or recordings made of your work/s. APRA-AMCOS is usually informed by radio and TV stations if there are any broadcasts of your work/s. They can also collect royalties on your behalf from overseas parties who may use your music, as long as there are reciprocal arrangements in place with collecting societies in those countries.

APRA-AMCOS is not a music publisher and does not market your works. Your agreement with APRA-AMCOS is subject to any arrangements that you make with a music publisher. Most music publishers are members of AMCOS and receive royalties directly from them.

For more information go to the Music Creators part of the APRA-AMCOS website, or contact their Writer Services department.

PPCA

You can join PPCA if you are a recording artist who is a featured performer (not a session or contract musician) on an Australian recording. An Australian recording means the recording is made by an Australian citizen, resident or company.

PPCA provide a service to licence and collect royalties from broadcasters and businesses that play recorded music. Recorded music includes CDs, tapes or music videos. PPCA can also arrange to collect royalties in other countries where there are reciprocal arrangements. Membership is free. See the PPCA website's information for new artists.

If you join PPCA, you will need to register any new recordings with them. As a member you are entitled to direct payments under the artist direct distribution scheme. If you are not a member of PPCA, any payments would go to the copyright owner of the recording, which is usually the record label. However, you may have a separate arrangement with the record label for distributing royalties.

Creative Commons

If you are interested in making your work/s freely available without any royalties being paid, Creative Commons provide a number of licenses that you can use for distributing your music. Two examples are a 'share-alike' licence and a non-commercial licence. Each licence is different so read the terms carefully. If unsure of any conditions, always seek legal advice. Visit the information about licences on the Creative Commons website (Australia) licences section.

Important: Be careful in your decision because once you have allocated a Creative Commons licence to your music, you cannot reverse that decision. There are no 'licence back' or 'opt-out' options.

See Creative Commons for more information.

Putting your music on Facebook, Myspace, YouTube or other networking sites

Social networking sites are an increasingly popular way of distributing music. But be careful about the terms and conditions of these websites. Sometimes by submitting your copyright material to the site, you are agreeing to a transfer of ownership of copyright in the material.

Other visitors to the site may not respect the terms you place on the use of your work. Once your work is online, it can be difficult to control what happens to it. You may lose the ability to commercialise the work or use it for another purpose.