A private copying levy is a government-mandated scheme in which a special tax or levy is charged on purchases of recordable media. Such taxes are in place in various countries and the income is typically allocated to the developers of "content".
Copyrights can either be licensed or assigned by the owner of the copyright. A copyright collective is a non-governmental body created by copyright law or private agreement which licenses copyrighted works on behalf of the authors and engages in collective rights management. Copyright societies track all the events and venues where copyrighted works are used and ensure that the copyright holders listed with the society are remunerated for such usage. The copyright society publishes its own tariff scheme on its websites and collects a nominal administrative fee on every transaction.
A performance rights organisation (PRO), also known as a performing rights society, provides intermediary functions, particularly collection of royalties, between copyright holders and parties who wish to use copyrighted works publicly in locations such as shopping and dining venues. Legal consumer purchase of works, such as buying CDs from a music store, confer private performance rights. PROs usually only collect royalties when use of a work is incidental to an organisation's purpose. Royalties for works essential to an organisation's purpose, such as theaters and radio, are usually negotiated directly with the rights holder. The interest of the organisations varies: many have the sole focus of musical works, while others may also encompass works and authors for audiovisual, drama, literature, or the visual arts.
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) is a Canadian performance rights organization that represents the performing rights of more than 175,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers. The organization collects license fees through a music licensing program approved by the Copyright Board of Canada.
A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset or a fixed price per unit sold of an item of such, but there are also other modes and metrics of compensation. A royalty interest is the right to collect a stream of future royalty payments.
The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA) amended the United States copyright law by adding Chapter 10, "Digital Audio Recording Devices and Media". The act enabled the release of recordable digital formats such as Sony's Digital Audio Tape without fear of contributory infringement lawsuits.
APRA AMCOS consists of Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), both copyright management organisations or copyright collectives which jointly represent over 100,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in Australia and New Zealand. The two organisations work together to license public performances and administer performance, communication and reproduction rights on behalf of their members, who are creators of musical works, aiming to ensure fair payments to members and to defend their rights under the Australian Copyright Act (1968).
Music licensing is the licensed use of copyrighted music. Music licensing is intended to ensure that the owners of copyrights on musical works are compensated for certain uses of their work. A purchaser has limited rights to use the work without a separate agreement.
The Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte is a government-mandated collecting society and performance rights organization based in Germany, with administrative offices in Berlin and Munich. GEMA represents the usage rights stemming from authors' rights for the musical works of those composers, lyricists, and publishers who are members in the organization. It is the only such institution in Germany and a member of BIEM and CISAC. Other collecting societies include the (AKM) Society of authors, composers and music publishers in Austria and SUISA in Switzerland.
SpiralFrog was a very early music streaming service based in New York City that launched in the United States and Canada on September 17, 2007. SpiralFrog offered free and legal music downloads, all supported by advertising, and was the largest site of its kind in North America. On March 19, 2009, SpiralFrog terminated operations due to loan recalls. While SpiralFrog was not successful in the end, it nonetheless helped shaped the digital music industry shift from the purchase to streaming models, and its ultimate revenue recovery
The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, often referred to as JASRAC, is a Japanese copyright collection society. It was founded in 1939 as a nonprofit organization, and is the largest musical copyright administration society in Japan.
SoundExchange is an American non-profit collective rights management organization founded in 2003. It is the sole organization designated by the U.S. Congress to collect and distribute digital performance royalties for sound recordings. It pays featured and non-featured artists and master rights owners for the non-interactive use of sound recordings under the statutory licenses set forth in 17 U.S.C. § 112 and 17 U.S.C. § 114. As of 2023, the company serves a community of over 650,000 creators worldwide, offering various products and services.
The Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada was a Canadian copyright collective for the right to communicate with the public and publicly perform musical works. CAPAC administered these rights on behalf of its members and those of affiliated international organizations by licensing the use of their music in Canada. Royalties were paid to the music creators after administration costs were deducted to pay for the operation of CAPAC.
Collection administration of copyrights describes the use in Canadian law of collective societies to manage licenses for copyrighted material belonging to more than one copyright owner. These collective societies are responsible for granting permission to use the works they manage and setting out what conditions users of their works must follow. Examples of collective societies in Canada include: Christian Video Licensing International and the Canadian Broadcasters Rights Agency
Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) v. Bell Canada, 2012 SCC 36, is a leading Canadian case on the application of fair dealing under s. 29 of the Copyright Act. It pertained to the use of previews of musical works on online music services that sell digital files of musical works.
Entertainment Software Ass'n v. Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, 2012 SCC 34, is a landmark Supreme Court of Canada judgement that clarified the nature of and relationship between, the bundle of rights created for copyright owners under section 3(1) of the Copyright Act of Canada. In particular, the Supreme Court considered the relationship between the reproduction and communication rights under the Copyright Act, and applied the principle of technological neutrality to hold that downloading a work engaged only the reproduction right, and not the communication right.
Re:Sound is the non-profit performance rights organization in Canada that collects and administers Neighbouring Rights royalties on behalf of recording artists, including featured artists and session musicians and record labels in Canada. Re:Sound was founded in 1997 and in French is referred to as Ré:Sonne.
The Korea Music Copyright Association (KOMCA) is a South Korean non-profit copyright collective for musical works, administering public performance and broadcasting rights, and mechanical recording and reproduction rights. Founded in 1964, it is the second collective rights management organization for musical works in Asia, after JASRAC in Japan. It is also one of the largest in Asia, with over 40,000 members. In 2021, it collected ₩289 billion in licensing fees and distributed ₩256 billion in royalties to its members.
NexTone Inc. is a Japanese copyright collective that stands between copyright holders and users of music, not only managing music works and contents, but also promoting the use of music through digital content distribution and casting businesses, system development, and services for music publishers. It also promotes the use of music through digital content distribution and casting businesses, system development, and services for music publishers. Its headquarters is located in Hiroo, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Major shareholders include Amuse Inc. and Faith, Inc.
