Copyright Agency collects fees and distributes royalties to creator members for the reuse of text and images.
We manage the educational copying schemes, the Commonwealth, State and Territory government copying schemes, the Resale Royalty scheme for artists, and the special provisions for institutions assisting people with print disabilities – all by appointment by the Government or by the Copyright Tribunal.
Businesses demonstrating best practice governance, secure commercial licences from us for improved compliance and seamless work flow.
We also have agreements with International Affiliates to license the use of foreign content here, and collect licence fees for Australian content used overseas.
Copyright Agency provides philanthropic support to Australia’s cultural community through our grants program, the Cultural Fund.
Our members are authors, poets and playwrights, journalists, publishers, visual artists, photographers, cartoonists and illustrators and surveyors.
Since 2012, the Copyright Agency and Viscopy, which licenses images of artworks, have joined forces. Viscopy’s members are visual artists. Jointly, we have more than 41,000 members.
Find out more about Our Heritage.
We are responsible to:
- the Commonwealth Minister for Communications and the Arts under our appointments to manage the ‘statutory’ licences for education and government, and the artists’ resale royalty scheme. (See Declaration by the Attorney-General)
- 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.
what we don’t do
- contact APRA|AMCOS if you want to copy, record, perform or play someone else’s music in public, and PPCA (as well) if you want to play recorded music in public
- contact Screenrights if you are an educational institution that records broadcasts for education, or a creator whose work has been broadcast
- we can’t give you legal advice, but you may be able to get advice from The Australian Copyright Council
15 February 2016