Information for:

Quicklinks:

FAQs
Resources & downloads (NB access restricted to Monash staff and students)
Contacts

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

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If you are an unpublished composer: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

You can join APRA if you compose music or lyrics, 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 you assign the right to performing and communicating your work/s to them and they collect royalties on your behalf. This means that you cannot licence those rights to anyone else without getting permission from APRA. See Licence Back below.

You may change your mind and decide to licence the works yourself. This is called 'opt-out' and requires you to give APRA 3 months notice in advance. See Opt-out information (pdf)

To receive royalties you register your music with APRA and notify them of any live performances of your work/s. APRA is usually informed by radio and TV stations if there are any broadcasts of your work/s. They can also collect royalties from overseas on your behalf, where there are reciprocal arrangements with international collecting societies.

See About APRA: a guide (pdf) and joining APRA

AMCOS

You can join AMCOS if you are a music publisher, songwriter, composer or lyricist or owner of copyright in a musical work. You must have at least one of your works released for sale to the public before you would be eligible to join.

Amcos provide a service to licence and collect royalties for copyright owners of musical works. They can also arrange to collect royalties in other countries where there are reciprocal arrangements. Membership is free.

They administer the following rights:

reproducing musical works on CD or other audio format for sale to the public
digital downloading from an online music service
reproducing music in audiovisual formats, like DVD
reproducing musical works in TV programs or online to the public, such as in ringtones or web-casts.

You can choose what works and what rights you want AMCOS to administer for you. This is the 'opt-out' option. More information about this is found at Services provided by AMCOS(pdf)

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

See AMCOS membership questions (pdf) and AMCOS more information

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 information for new artists

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.

If you join PPCA, you will need to register any new recordings with them, see sample recording details form (pdf) and recording details form (pdf)

Licence Back

If you have signed over your rights to an organisation, you can no longer excercise those rights. For example if you assign your performance rights to APRA, you can not grant permission to someone else to perform your work/s separately.

However, APRA and AMCOS allow you to get a licence for a one-off use of your work/s. This is called a Licence Back. But you need to give written notice at least 2 months in advance so this can be arranged. There are also other formalities. See Licence Back information (pdf).

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. See list of licences.

To apply for a Creative Commons licence go to: choose a licence

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.