OneMusic Australia
- sells music licences to businesses and organisations
- deducts an administration cost of around 13 cents in the dollar and
- passes the rest of the fees direct to music creators.
These important licences permit legal public performance of musical works (songs), sound recordings and music videos.
In Australia the Copyright Act (1968) requires any business who is playing music to have been given permission from the owners of that music before they ‘press play’. There are similar copyright laws in most countries in the world.
A OneMusic Australia licence is one form of permission and follows a common, global system of collecting fees and giving permission. Signing a direct agreement with all copyright owners is another form of permission, but is much less common.
OneMusic started in July 2019. It is a shop-front for APRA AMCOS and PPCA. To save time and effort, songwriters and music publishers (APRA AMCOS) and recording artists and record labels (PPCA) ask these two organisations to
- locate where their music is being played in a business
- give permission through a licence and
- charge a blanket fee for this use
so they can rightfully earn money from the work they have created and the ‘products’ (Intellectual property) they own.
