Most of the copyright fees that we collect and distribute (to writers, artists and publishers) are from collective licences, also known as blanket licences.
Organisations like us are referred to as copyright collecting societies or copyright management organisations (CMOs).
A collective licence allows an organisation (the licensee) to use content from a very large number and range of rightsholders, for scenarios in which getting individual permissions or licences from each rightsholder is not feasible.
We manage two types of collective licences:
- statutory (compulsory) licence schemes in the Copyright Act for the education and government sectors
- rightsholder opt-in (‘voluntary’) licences, as non-exclusive agent for our members
Under a statutory licence scheme, rightsholders cannot prevent the use of their content, but are entitled to fair compensation for the compulsory acquisition of their rights to withhold permission or negotiate their own terms.
Rightsholder opt-in is non-exclusive, so rightsholders can license the same content and rights themselves.
This is a summary of the collective licences that we manage.
| Licensee type | Licence allows |
| Education institutions | Copying and sharing for education purposes |
| Governments (Commonwealth, State, Territory) | Any use for government purposes. In practice, we have licence agreements:
|
| Businesses and not-for-profit organisations | Internal copying and sharing for business purposes, including for prompts for AI tools |
| Local governments (councils) | Internal copying and sharing for council purposes, including for prompts for AI tools |
| Media monitoring organisations (MMOs) | Supply of news media content, including from webscraping, to MMO customers |
| Full-text database publisher | Inclusion of magazine journal and magazine articles in database, and supply to publisher’s customers |
| Public art galleries | Publication of artworks on the gallery’s website, and other digital uses |
| Auction houses | Publication of artworks in auction catalogues |
| Magazine publishers | Publication of artworks in magazines |
How it works
Determination of licence fee
This happens in two ways:
- we negotiate with a representative entity for the licensee sector; or
- we develop a licence scheme for a licensee sector drawing on a range of factors
In either case the licence fee can be determined (if negotiations fail) or reviewed by the Copyright Tribunal.
Nearly all licence agreements are for a fixed term (annual or multi-year) with a fixed ‘all you can eat’ price for the term of the agreement (not affected by the level of consumption or use during the licence term).
We negotiate with the following representative entities:
- Copyright Advisory Group (CAG) for almost the entire school sector, and all TAFE (Technical and Further Education) institutes except those in Victoria
- Victorian TAFE Association
- Universities Australia for its 39 members
- the Commonwealth and each State and Territory Government for departments and agencies that each represents
Sales of licences under licence schemes
Our licensing teams identify prospective licensees that are not covered by negotiations with representative entities, and sell the licences that we offer under our licence schemes.
Distributions of licence fees to writers, artists and publishers
We distribute the licence fees from each licensee sector at least annually, using a range of data from different sources available to us in relation to each sector. There is information about our distribution payments here, including our distribution schedule and distribution information sheets.
Relationship between collective and ‘direct’ licensing
A licensee can have ‘direct’ licences with individual rightsholders, as well as a collective licence. An individual rightsholder may license a very large number of works (e.g. a large publisher) or a small number of works (e.g. an individual artist or small publisher).
Benefits of collective licensing
Apart from providing a ‘one-stop shop’ for licensees for vast amounts of content, collective licences can also provide licensing opportunities for rightsholders for whom direct licensing may not be feasible.
Governance and transparency for collective licences
Our governance and transparency includes:
- provision of detailed annual reports to the Government which are tabled in Parliament
- annual reporting and review of our compliance with the Code of Conduct for Copyright Collecting Societies
- Copyright Tribunal jurisdiction to determine or review licence fees, data collection arrangements, and distribution arrangements
Collective licences for other types of content
The other major copyright management organisations in Australia are:
- Screenrights for broadcast content
- APRA AMCOS for musical works
- PPCA for recordings of musical works
Collecting licensing in other countries
There are copyright management organisations in many other countries, and we have reciprocal agreements with those representing writers, artists and publishers.
We are a member of the two main international peak bodies for copyright collecting societies: IFRRO (International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations) and CISAC.
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a United Nations agency, publishes information about collective management that includes Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights (an overview) and WIPO Good Practice Toolkit for Collective Management Organizations.
‘Pay-per-use’ (transactional) licences
While most of the copyright fees that we collect are from collective licences, we also offer ‘pay-per-use’ or transactional licences for single works, or a small number of works. We do this primarily for artworks, but also for text works such as newspaper and magazine articles.
April 2026
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