You can get paid royalties when music you have written or recordings you have performed on get listened to, sold or performed publicly.

Royalties are generally paid for the performance or reproduction of your songs and recordings. APRA AMCOS & PPCA exist to track the use of your music across businesses. They collect money from the business and then pay you royalties.

To get paid royalties you have to join and register your music with APRA, AMCOS and PPCA.

APRA

Pays royalties for the live performance, broadcast (radio or tv) or streaming of a song. 

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AMCOS

Pays royalties for unpublished works released on a recording for sale to the public or reproduced in a production music recording and/or available to stream.

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PPCA

Collects and pays royalties to recording artists and labels for the public performance or streaming (e.g. internet radio) of recordings and/or music videos songs.

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Who can join APRA?

If you write or compose your own songs, you may be eligible to join APRA. You'll also need to match one or more of the following criteria:

• You or someone else performs your songs live OR 
• Your songs are broadcast on radio or TV OR 
• Your songs are available to stream online.

You can't join if you're a member of an overseas Performing Rights Organisation. If you're in a band, only the members who write or compose music need to join.

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Who can join AMCOS?

Joining AMCOS is separate from joining APRA. You may want to join AMCOS if you are an

unpublished writer (meaning, you have no publishing agreement in place) with releases on a recording for sale to the public or reproduced in a production music recording.

You can join AMCOS if:

• You're a copyright owner of musical works AND
• At least one of your works is unpublished and has been commercially reproduced eg: available on a digital music service like Spotify or Apple Music, released as a physical product by a third party or reproduced in a production music recording.

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Who can join PPCA?

You’re entitled to register with PPCA if you’re a recording artist who is:

• An Australian citizen OR
• An Australian protected person OR
• An Australian resident

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AND a featured performer (i.e. not a session, contract musician or DJ) on a protected and eligible recording (i.e. the recording is made by an Australian citizen, resident or company or on which at least one featured recording artist was an Australian citizen or resident for tax purposes at the time the recording was made). You can also register if you own the copyright in a recording or music video OR if you have exclusive rights in Australia.

Usually the copyright owner is a recording label, but sometimes artists own their own rights.

If you own the copyright in your own recordings (i.e. you are your own label) you can register as a ‘’label’’.

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Registration deadline

To be included in payments, you must register by 31 August each year.

Lost artists

PPCA retains a list of artists they are unable to contact. That may mean they have payments they haven’t been able to make, so please check the list and contact PPCA if your name appears.

When a business wants to broadcast, communicate or publicly perform your recording, they usually require two licences – one from APRA AMCOS and one from PPCA or each copyright owner (usually the label / record company, but sometimes the artist themselves, when they have retained their copyright).

OneMusic Australia is an APRA AMCOS and PPCA joint licensing initiative launched 1 July 2019 to simplify licensing for businesses publicly performing music, sound recordings, and music video clips.

In Australia, music creators generally authorise two organisations to administer their rights, APRA AMCOS (composers and music publishers) and PPCA (recording artists and record labels).

OneMusic Australia offers joint public performance licences so there's no longer any need for small businesses to get separate licence agreements and invoices from PPCA and APRA AMCOS.

OneMusic Australia allows businesses to meet copyright obligations for the public performance of musical works and sound recordings more seamlessly.