This is something that I have always tried to care about when it comes to my music but i just find it hard and keep thinking “well no one's going to use my songs now are they”. However when i hit the industry after this course it could potentially be a different story. I have recently been making some assets for a game for example and what if this games goes into production and gets published with my assets in it?
Today during the copyright lecture i learnt that the people who make the most money who are under APRA and AMCOS are in fact people who make music and assets for TV/film/games etc. for instance the royalties for music that is featured on a tv broadcast during prime time can be paid upto $62 for 1:43 minutes. That’s a lot! But you have to be a member of APRA and AMCOS to make sure that you get paid the right royalties so I’ll take a step back.
APRA and AMCOS are two seperate companies APRA members are able to register their music and only have to give RAW data about each song if anything ever happened they have a record of the songs and when they were written. However you do not need to provide links to music you just need to register when is was written and lyrics in some cases. AMCOS members are people who already have music that is published online such as on Spotify. Here they are able to collect royalties per song play and downloads on platforms such as Itunes and collect your royalties for you. Although there is a difference it for emerging artists it is most important to be part of APRA as they will collect all your performing royalties from live venues that you wouldn’t get paid otherwise.
I am not a member of APRA AMCOS but I have learnt from the session this week that it is very important as a performing musician that I become one. Not only for copyright purposes but so that at the end of next financial year I can get paid for performing my songs! How cool is that? I had no idea that you could get paid for performing original work from APRA. Last year APRA paid musicians $2.40 per song per set to that they registered them. Last year APRA AMCOS paid $6.78 million to members nationwide. They also paid any covers that were performed the royalties to the original composer. To get these royalties you need to give a performance report which entails a list of the songs you played and where you played them, date and time. The venue that you play at must be a registered APRA AMCOS venue. If they are not and are holding live music events and not paying their yearly fee they may receive a fine. A live music venue pays 2.2% of their annual expenditure on their artists. That seems so little to me considering the amount of business they get from music performances.
After researching further into the copyright section on APRA AMCOS website here is an overview of information that I learnt.
There are myths surrounded by copyright such as you need to register with Copyright Australia to get something covered by copyright and when I googled ‘copyright’ the first thing that came up was a link to a page where I could register my work.
Another myth about copyright and APRA AMCOS is that it is only copyrighted if it it registered with them, this is false. If you wrote and recorded a song in any way (even a voice memo) it is automatically copyrighted under The Australian Copyright act. Another myth is that if you sent the song your wrote and recorded to yourself then it is copyrighted. This does not help with copyright if someone has access to your song. The only thing this does show is when it was written and sent but does not show who wrote or recorded it.
Where APRA AMCOS comes in after this is with factors such as performing rights, Mechanical rights and communication rights when it comes to copyright. Performing rights include artists being able to play their songs/ comostions at live venues or events, play recorded versions of their songs in businesses, venues or workplaces and have their compositions used in film or advertising. Communication rights include being able to have their songs broadcasted on radio/television, communicated to the public online, have their songs used as an on-hold telephone system. A mechanical right ables musicians and composers to be able to have their songs used on films as a soundtrack, have their music copied to CD, DVD or online sales and to have their music produced as a music score/lyric sheet. As you can see these small difference in how the content is being used makes the categories necessary for copyright reasons. The rights being divided up is important to make cases and categories types of compositions such as the difference between assets for a game or film are different from a pop song.
So, if you record your music and you become a member of APRA AMCOS they can help you copyright issues as well as give permission for your composition to be used by people in other industries commercially such as filmmakers, TV stations, people who own businesses, on advertisers, webmakers and be used at festivals and concerts. They will also collect all the necessary payments made by anyone who uses you music for these mediums and collect your royalties for you.
Something else that fascinated me that is the point that was made in the presentation on monday about Soundcloud’s policy. I have used soundcloud for almost all my assignments this year as well as some of my personal music endeavours. I was however un aware of the terms and conditions especially this section that I found out about at the presentation and when i googled this statement found different artist blogs discussing if their policy was ethical. In their ‘Terms and Conditions’ Soundcloud states.
“By uploading Your Content to the Platform, you also grant a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid up, licence to other users of the Platform, and to users of any other websites, apps and/or platforms to which Your Content has been shared or embedded using the Services (“Linked Services”), to use, copy, transmit or otherwise distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, prepare derivative works of, make available and otherwise communicate to the public” (Soundcloud, 2018)
This is crazy as it is hidden deep in another paragraph regarding content.
To conclude I have learnt that there is a lot to learn about protecting my right as a performer and musician as well as my creative right perform and distribute thoughtfully through the advice of APRA AMCOS. As well as finding reliable sources when distributing music and not picking the platform or distribution service that seems the most effective- terms and conditions are important.
References:
Copyright. (2018). Retrieved from http://apraamcos.com.au/music-creators/copyright/
Privacy Policy - Listen to music. (2018). Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/pages/privacy
Shepherd, I. (2018). SoundCloud's Terms and Conditions - Are they fair and reasonable ? - Production Advice. Retrieved from http://productionadvice.co.uk/soundclouds-terms-conditions/
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