Why join APRA AMCOS?
Why join APRA AMCOS as a Writer Member
Get paid for the use of music you write
The Australian Copyright Act (1968) gives music copyright owners—songwriters, composers, and publishers—several exclusive rights, including the right to:
- Perform the work in public
- Communicate the work to the public by various means
- Reproduce their work in a material form
- Make an adaptation of the work
APRA AMCOS exists to manage these rights on your behalf and make sure you get paid royalties when someone, anywhere in the world, uses your music.
If you're in a band, only the members who write or compose music need to join. Writer membership is on an individual basis and not open to companies, organisations or groups.
Joining AMCOS is separate from joining APRA. If your works are published, your publisher will collect the reproduction royalties on your behalf, and you don't need to join AMCOS.
Career opportunities
When you become a member, you’ll be joining our music community of 124,000+ songwriters and composers collectively.
You'll have opportunities to connect and learn from your music industry peers at APRA AMCOS-run networking and industry events. Our staff are available to give you expert advice on your royalties. Take your career to the next step by entering our competitions or taking advantage of professional development opportunities.
There's always something exciting coming up. Make sure to keep an eye on our calendar for details.
Member benefits
As a member of APRA AMCOS, you can access exclusive offers and discounts on everything from studio time to insurance, through our member benefits program.
Member resources
During your membership, you'll be required to provide us with certain information so we can pay you. We've put together all the resources you need, with step-by-step guides and relevant forms to make the process as smooth as possible. So you can get back to doing what you love.
Why join APRA AMCOS as a Publisher Member
We can administer the rights in your catalogue
As a music publisher, keeping track of, and negotiating payment for, every use of every work you represent can be an expensive and demanding process. This is where APRA AMCOS can help.
We do collectively what would otherwise be difficult for you to do on an individual basis. We license music users to:
- Perform music in public
- Communicate music to the public
- Reproduce music in any recorded form
(Publishers usually choose to administer adaptation rights themselves)
We collect licence fees for these uses and pay royalties to the owners of the performing and reproduction rights for these uses of their music. To maximise revenue from performing and reproduction licences, we recommend that music publishers join both APRA and AMCOS.
Monitoring international use of your catalogue
You may have sub-publishing agreements with publishers in other territories, who collect your royalties in those territories through the relevant societies. APRA AMCOS can collect royalties from the territories where you don't have sub-publishing agreements.
Flexible memberships
As a member of APRA AMCOS, you grant us an exclusive licence to administer the performing and reproduction rights for the writers and works you represent, in the lines of business you specify in your agreement with us. We understand that there are situations where individual owners and users may conveniently deal directly with each other. In these instances, there will be no need for the collection and distribution facility we provide. Under your agreement with us you have a lot of flexibility to:
- licence-back works for specific purposes
- license works to a specific licensee
- opt-out of certain business lines
We advocate on your behalf
There's strength in numbers. We make sure that we're across any legislation that might impact the value of music and back our members' rights up to the highest levels of government.
Do you need Publisher Membership?
If you're a music publishing company who represents other writers’ catalogues, you can apply to be a Publisher Member. Find out more about what publishers do.
We're here to help
We've got specialised departments to look after our members, licence enquiries, international affiliates, and more. Get in touch or send us a message using our department direct form.
