By Elliott Bledsoe, Co-lead

CC Australia made a submission in response to the application by the Australasian Performing Right Association for revocation of authorisation AA1000433 and substitution of new authorisaton AA1000661.

The music collecting society Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) made an application to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to re-authorise APRA’s arrangements for managing music performing rights in its repertoire. Applications for authorisation by the ACCC arise where an applicant seeks approval to engage in conduct that may otherwise breach Australian competition law.

As with previous re-authorisation applications by APRA, CC Australia made a submission in response to this application in which we reiterated our long-standing concern that Creative Commons (CC) licences are still unable to be used by Australian musicians, locking them out of the most well known open content licensing (OCL) scheme. Since Creative Commons International flagged the issue with the ACCC by back in 2005, we still believe that CC should be compatible with APRA’s licensing model. Nearly 20 years later and this issue remains unresolved. Every Australian musician should have the choice to directly licence their works, including under a CC licence, if they wish.

In the submission we also raised again concerns with the governance of Australian collecting societies, including APRA. We recognise the benefits that APRA provides as a collecting society and that APRA has made a number of positive improvements to its operations, but that does not mean there isn’t room for greater regulation of collecting societies and more in how APRA collects data about music usage by licensees, and how this determines the distribution of royalties.

You can find out more about the application on the ACCC’s website.

Our submission is available to read online. You can also download the submission as a PDF, a Word document or in Open Document Format below.

Credits

Image: ‘Vases, meubles et instrumens. 1-25. Instrumens à vent des égyptiens; 26-34. Instrumens bruyants et de percussion’ in Description de l’Egypte : ou, Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Egypte pendant l’expédition de l’armee française / publié par les ordres de Sa Majesté l’empereur Napoléon le Grand, edited by Edme-François Jomard, 1817. Collection: Rare Book Division, The New York Public Library. View online.

Reuse

Past submissions

Past submissions to APRA re-authorisation requests by CC AU or Creative Commons international.

• Creative Commons Australia, ‘Creative Commons Australian Chapter’s Submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on the Australasian Performing Right Association Ltd.’s Application for Re-Authorisation’, 2019, available on the ACCC website.
• Creative Commons Australia, ‘Re Australasian Performing Right Association Ltd – Applications for revocation and substitution of authorisations A91187 to A91194 and A91211 – Final Determination’, 2010c, available on the ACCC website.
• Creative Commons Australia, ‘Re Australasian Performing Right Association Ltd – Applications for revocation and substitution (A91187 to A91194 and A91211) – Interested Parties Consultation’, 2010b, available on the ACCC website.
• Creative Commons Australia, ‘Re Australasian Performing Right Association Ltd – Applications for revocation and substitution (A91187 to A91194 and A91211) – Draft determination’, 2010a, available on the ACCC website.
• Creative Commons Australia, ‘Re Australasian Performing Right Association Ltd – Applications for revocation and substitution (A91187 to A91194) – Interested parties consultation’, 2009, available on the ACCC website.
• Creative Commons International, ‘Further Submission re: re-authorisation of collective administration of music performing rights by APRA’, 2005, available on the ACCC website.
• Creative Commons International, ‘RE: re-authorisation of collective administration of music performing rights by APRA’, 2005, available on the ACCC website.