The answer from the horse’s mouth:

Dear Eric,

Thank you for your e-mail enquiry.

Firstly, you are quite right in assuming NO to all three of the situations you have outlined below. Secondly, please allow me to give you a bit of basic information about music copyright.

Within any song there exists two separate copyrights - The Musical Work and the Sound Recording. The Musical Work refers to the composition and lyrics of a song (the underlying tune) which is owned by the songwriter and/or publishing company and is represented by APRA|AMCOS. The Sound Recording refers to the original recording of the musical works and is controlled by the artist and/or record company and is represented by ARIA and PPCA.

If you are not the copyright owner of a song and you wish to perform the song in public or make copies of the song for public performance or business purposes you are required by Australian Copyright Law to obtain permission from one or both copyright owners (or their representatives.)

There are a number of different licence options available at APRA|AMCOS (which cover the publishing rights of a song) and the correct one to apply for very much depends on the use of our member's musical works. Due to a 2006 amendment to the Australian Copyright Act, the reproduction of copyright music is now allowed (without a licence) providing the recordings are solely for private and domestic use and that you own the original recordings (eg. album you have purchased). Therefore, an individual will not require a licence if they are for example personally transferring their own vinyl tracks to CD or CD tracks to MP3 for their own personal use, and they legally own the originals. This also includes a cover version of a track you have produced for your own personal use only. However, the Australian Copyright Act also states that if you own a business which provides a reproduction service to the public or if you wish to copy songs for public performance or promotional purposes you are required by law to be covered by the appropriate licence.

In the case of a karaoke host providing CD recordings of patrons singing, this would require a Non-Retail reproduction licence from AMCOS. To upload a song on to a website (making a piece of copyright music available to the public) again would require an AMCOS Reproduction Licence, but this time from our Online Licensing Dept. For more detailed information regarding online licences please e-mail online@apra.com.au. Please contact me if you require more details of non-retail licences.

Please note, if you are making copies or broadcasting the original sound recordings you will also need the equivalent licences from ARIA. For more information on licences from ARIA you will need to contact them directly on 02 8569 1144 or licensing.mail@aria.com.au.

I hope you find this information helpful. If you have any further questions about the Domestic Use Licence please do not hesitate to contact me. For independent advice on music copyright you can contact the Australian Copyright Council at www.copyright.org.au ,the Arts Law Centre at www.artslaw.com.au and MIPI (Music Industry Piracy Investigations) at www.mipi.com.au

Kind Regards,
Mark Garrity
Non-Retail Licensing Representative
APRA | AMCOS

Submitted by CHINA, from CAULFIELD on 14-09-2009

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