What do you do?

We collect and distribute copyright fees and royalties for text and images.

We also provide information, assistance and advocacy for our members.

What is your authority?

We are appointed by the Australian government to manage collection and distribution of:

• fair payment for educational and government use of text and images
• royalties to artists from resales of their works.

We are also authorised by our members to license their works for other uses, such as by corporations.

What is the relationship between Copyright Agency and Viscopy?

Copyright Agency and Viscopy are both member-based not-for profit organisations. Copyright Agency’s members include writers, artists and publishers. Viscopy’s members are artists and artists’ estates.

Since July 2012, Copyright Agency has managed Viscopy’s services. We refer to our joint operations as Copyright Agency|Viscopy.

Who do you collect fees and royalties from?

We manage licensing solutions for:

• the education sector
• the government sector
• corporations
• the not-for-profit sector
• public galleries, auction houses and others who reproduce artworks.

We collect resale royalties for artists from auction houses, commercial galleries and art dealers.

How do you work out how much licensees pay?

We negotiate licence fees with licensees, based on the value of the use of the content to them.

Licence fees and other licence terms can be set by the Copyright Tribunal if agreement cannot be reached by negotiation.

We collect information about usage by licensees, that assists us to determine the value of the licence to them.

How much do you collect and distribute?

In 2011–12, we collected just over $122M in licence fees and royalties for creators of text and images. We distributed over $141M (which included some licence fees collected in previous years).

Who do you pay money to?

We distribute the licence fees we collect to the creators of the content used, in accordance with our Distribution Rules.

Our members have authorised us to allocate 1.5% of licence fees to a cultural fund, to support cultural projects and creators’ professional development.

How do you work out who to pay?

We collect information about usage by licensees, mostly by surveys of usage by a statistical sample of licensees. We use this information to allocate licence fees to content creators.

Recipients undertake to on-pay any amounts due to others, so many people receive indirect payments.

Allocations from the Cultural Fund are based on applications for funding approved by the board on recommendation from the Cultural Fund Committee.

What are your fees?

For most licence schemes we deduct our operating costs. For some licence fees, we have a fixed deduction: for example, we deduct 10% from licence fees collected by foreign affiliates.

In 2011–12, our overall expenses were about 14% of revenue.

To whom are you responsible?

We are responsible to:

• the Commonwealth Attorney General under our appointment to manage the ‘statutory’ licences for education and government
• the Minister for the Arts under our appointment to manage the artists’ resale royalty scheme
• our members under the Corporations Act
• people for whom we hold licence fees under trust obligations.

In addition:

• the Copyright Tribunal can review licence fees and other licence terms
• we report annually to the Code Reviewer (a former Federal Court judge) on our compliance with the Collecting Societies Code of Conduct

Are there other organisations like you?

Yes. There are other rights management organisations in Australia, that manage rights in music and film: APRA|AMCOS (music rights for composers and music publishers), PPCA (music rights for owners of rights in recordings), and Screenrights (recording, copying and retransmission of tv and radio broadcasts).

There are also similar organisations to us in other countries. We have agreements with them that enable us to license the use of foreign content here, and collect licence fees for Australian content used overseas.

The primary source of information about copyright in Australia is the Australian Copyright Council.

Other sources of information and assistance here.