Distribution information guide: Airlines

Name: APRA AMCOS
Address: Australia
Price range: $

This information guide explains how the licence fees we collect from airlines are paid out as royalties.

Where does the money come from?

APRA AMCOS collects licence fees from Australian and New Zealand commercial airlines, e.g. Qantas, Virgin Australia, and Air NZ, for in-flight music use.

What information does APRA AMCOS use to determine who should be paid?

Airlines obtain music and audio-visual entertainment from third-party suppliers, to be made available to their passengers. Those same suppliers also provide us with electronic reports quarterly, detailing all music, film, and television programmes provided to each airline for use on in-flight audio systems. For smaller airlines APRA AMCOS may opt not to obtain direct data and instead make royalty distributions using data from larger airlines.

How are songs matched to the data APRA AMCOS receives?

The electronic reports provided by the airlines are directly matched to the vast repertoire of songs and audio-visual productions in our database.

How are the royalties calculated?

For APRA licence fees:

The distribution revenue from airlines is allocated:

70% - Audio-visual In-flight Entertainment
20% - Audio In-flight Entertainment
4% - Background Music
6% - Safety videos

For the audio, background music and safety video revenue allocations, a ‘points’ system is used where points are based on the length of the song (duration). We allocate 1 point per 15 seconds of duration for each song up to a 1 minute duration, 12 points for durations between 1 and 6 minutes, and four points per minute if the duration exceeds 6 minutes. This calculation is performed for every song, multiplied by the number of reported uses of that song.

For the audio-visual revenue allocation, a different ‘points’ system is used to allocate royalties, where we allocate 1 point per second of duration for each song in a program/film.

How points are used to calculate the royalty amount payable for each song

Separately, for audio and audio-visual for each airline that provides electronic reports, the revenue collected from the airline is divided by the total sum of all points which have been calculated, resulting in a $ rate per point for audio and audio-visual per airline. This rate is then multiplied by the number of points given to a song based on the scale above, resulting in the royalty amount payable for that song.

These calculations are performed for every song being paid in the distribution.

Lastly, we then multiply that figure by the number of performances or planes supplied, to calculate the amount payable for a song and pay that amount to the copyright owner(s) of the work. If the copyright owner is not a member of APRA or AMCOS but a member of an affiliated overseas society, we pay the money to that society.

For AMCOS licence fees:

Airlines use curated music playlists from music suppliers, which involve the copying or reproduction of music. AMCOS licenses this use. Unlike APRA, which licenses both the performance of songs and music in audio-visual productions, AMCOS only licenses the reproduction of songs because music synchronised into audio-visual productions occurs under separate licence arrangements. Music suppliers supply us with details of the songs that have been copied so that we can make royalty distributions to the relevant copyright owners. Where AMCOS opts not to require the supplier to provide this information, their royalties are allocated using data provided by other airlines.

How often are royalties paid?

Royalty distributions for Australian and New Zealand airlines (and their music suppliers) are calculated and paid quarterly.

What about songs that cannot be identified or are the subject of a dispute?

View our information guide on Unidentified Songs and Disputes for more information.

Key terms used in our Distribution Rules and Practices documents

Songs:
The Copyright Act refers to compositions, musical scores in the form of sheet music, or other notation as musical works. Lyrics or words to a song are considered literary works. When we refer to songs, we are referring to all the elements of a musical/literary work protected by copyright.