APRA Payouts Increase To $177.4M In 2013

Songwriters, composers and music publishers in Australia and New Zealand were paid $177.4 million in song performance royalties during the 2012-13 financial year according to APRA AMCOS's latest figures.

APRA's figure is up 4.2 percent from last financial year while AMCOS, who manage mechanical royalties, made payments worth $59.8 million to members, a decline of 4.4 percent. The decline comes after the significant increase in revenue in 2011/12, when payments rose 26.5 percent.

In total APRA AMCOS' net distributable revenue increased by 5 percent to $243.5 million. Together they made payments to 323,311 songwriters, composers and music publishers during the period – an average of just under $550 each. Performances of 833,236 unique musical works earned payments.

“Copyright is alive and well and is as indispensably relevant to music writers and music publishers in Australia and New Zealand as it has ever been,” said APRA AMCOS CEO Brett Cottle in his annual address.

“Without copyright – crafted to an internationally acceptable standard – there can be no royalty payments to writers, artists or their business partners for the various uses made of their works. In other words, without a reasonable copyright law there is no market for music, art or literature – and no reward for those who create it.”

In total, 39,016 of APRA's writer members received a royalty payment for performances in Australia or New Zealand, while 12,443 members received payment for performances elsewhere in the world. Those numbers are increases on 2012 by 16 percent and 15.4 percent respectively. The $21.7 million collected from international agencies was down from last year's $22.1 million, with 16.4 percent of the international revenue coming from the United Kingdom's PRS agency, 12.1 percent from the USA's ASCAP and 9.1 from fellow USA-based agency BMI.

APRA's costs went up by $2.1 million from last year, an increase of 8.9 percent, which Cottle says was due to an ongoing system overhaul which includes a new website and mobile apps (to launch in 2014), a joint venture with the New Zealand industry to develop a single licensing port for musical work, music recognition technology and a new general licensing system. The APRA expense to revenue ration is up to 12.9 percent from 12.8 percent last year.

APRA AMCOS has a combined workforce of 289 people, 53.6 percent of whom are women. 54 percent of the staff are aged between 30 and 50.

According to APRA's figures, 107,000 premises across Australia are currently licensed to use music.