APRA AMCOS collects licence fees from all Australian and New Zealand Pay TV providers for music used in broadcast television shows and advertisements and on their digital radio channels. In Australia this includes Foxtel and Fetch. In New Zealand this includes Sky.
Licence fees from commercial Free-to-Air TV networks and National and other TV broadcasters are collected and distributed separately.
We are provided with broadcast logs from the channels on Foxtel and Sky which detail the film and television productions (including promos and station IDs) they broadcast. We receive these logs on a full census basis. In Australia, we use Foxtel broadcast logs to determine who should be paid and in New Zealand we use Sky broadcast logs.
In addition to broadcast logs, we receive detailed electronic reports of the songs used in film and television productions (cue sheets) and in promos/station IDs. These may be provided by production companies, other societies, our writer and publisher members, or the broadcaster.
For songs used in advertisements, we allocate a portion of the licence fees to the relevant Commercial Free-to-air TV royalty distribution pools.
The broadcast logs we receive are used to match film and television productions with existing cue sheets in our database. The songs from the cue sheets are directly matched to the vast repertoire of songs in our database. We then distribute revenue to all cue sheets which are in our database at the time of processing the broadcast logs.
Where a direct distribution for a channel on a pay-TV platform cannot be made because of a lack of data or for reasons of efficiency, we may allocate the relevant portion of the licence fee to the overseas affiliate society of the territory where the television channel is produced.
To calculate royalties, APRA first needs to determine the value of each channel which is included in the distribution. This is achieved by using two metrics:
The following sets out the factor applied to each channel:
Channel type weightings
Once we’ve arrived at a dollar value for each channel, APRA’s distribution policy uses a ‘points’ system to allocate royalties to each song. From the cue sheets, we allocate one point per second of duration for each song. The points are then weighted using APRA’s standard weightings according to the use made of the music being broadcast
Music use weightings
How points are used to calculate the royalty amount payable for each song
Once the points have been calculated for all songs, the total revenue collected is divided by the total sum of all points, resulting in a $ rate per point. This rate is then multiplied by the number of points given to a song based on the weightings above, resulting in the royalty amount payable for that song. This calculation is performed for every song being paid in the distribution.
Once we have calculated the amount payable for a song, we can pay that amount to the copyright owner 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.
Pay TV networks or channels may hold AMCOS licences for the reproduction of songs in programmes produced under their licence with AMCOS. The licence fees are distributed based on cue sheets and music logs (music channels) provided to APRA. Each work receives one credit point per 30 seconds or part thereof.
Royalties are calculated and paid quarterly.
View our information guide on Unidentified Songs and Disputes for more information.
Songs:
The Copyright Act refers to compositions, musical scores in the form of sheet music, broadsheets 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.
Full census:
the licensee provides complete reports detailing all songs played, broadcast or streamed.
Cue sheet:
A cue sheet is a record of all songs used in a film and/or television production. APRA AMCOS is provided with cue sheets for all locally produced programs broadcast in Australia and New Zealand and this information is used to distribute royalties for the public performance of the song.
This fact sheet is a guide only. Refer to our full Distribution Rules and Practices for more information.