If you or your business provides music in the workplace, or otherwise to the public, including in any of the following ways:
- live performances;
- playing music CDs (or music in other formats including by means of digital services);
- playing the radio or a television;
- playing music as part of a telephone “on hold” system;
- playing music as part of training sessions, presentations or business functions;
- playing music via your website;
then you will need a licence from One Music Australia covering the musical work, lyrics, recording artists and labels copyright licencing and compliance. For more details, see onemusic.com.au
Australia’s Copyright Law
Australia’s copyright is largely contained in the Copyright Act 1968. Businesses and other organisations must comply with Australian copyright law in the same way they would other laws and regulations, such as consumer laws, privacy laws and fair trading laws.
Musical works and sound recordings are protected under Australian copyright law, which grants the copyright owner/s of a musical work or sound recording exclusive control of certain uses of their music by other people.
In most cases, businesses and organisations must obtain permission from the copyright owner/s before using musical works and sound recordings in those ways. If you do so without permission, you risk liability for copyright infringement.1.
Playing Music
The One Music Australia licence enables you to legally play the music of your choice within your dental surgery. Possibly, not every dental surgery within Australia that uses copyright music holds the required licence, and in most instances this is a breach of copyright and therefore against the law. Ultimately the onus is on the business owner to hold the appropriate licence required. Further information is publicly available here:
Television
Television is deemed a background music device due to the broadcast containing a portion of copyright protected music. This may come in the way of music within the programs themselves (either live or as background music and underscore), advertisements, transitions between segments or as part of introductions and/or end credits of a program.
The One Music Australia license for TV covers any screens connected to, or emitting, sound showing Free to Air, Foxtel and Sky Racing. The only exclusions are TV screens with no audio (including advertising screens), TAB text and Keno screens.
If a business is using Foxtel, the terms and conditions of the agreement with Foxtel contain a clause which states “If you are permitted by FOXTEL to broadcast any Channel into a public viewing area, then you will be responsible for paying any public performance license fees to the relevant Collecting Society”. Â
To play Foxtel in a business you will need to pay for a subscription directly with Foxtel.
In regards to Netflix, please refer to Term 4.2 below which states “The Netflix service and any content viewed through the service are for your personal and non-commercial use only and may not be shared with individuals beyond your household.” help.netflix.com/legal/termsofuse
If a business uses Foxtel or Netflix you will need a licence from One Music Australia for the public performance of copyrighted music.
How to Obtain a Licence?
One Music Australia is an Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) and Phonographic Performance of Australia Limited Company (PPCA) joint initiative that was launched on 1 July 2019. One Music Australia simplifies how all organisations obtain a public performance licence to play music.
One Music Australia encompasses APRA, AMCOS and PPCA’s pre-existing licences for the performance of music in your dental surgery. One Music Australia has a website that will help you calculate the costs for your music usage based on your business floor space. If your business floor space is 120 square metres you can have any number of devices playing music from an online stream or a download via a streaming service, a commercial music supplier, CDs, internet TV, Video on Demand, or TVs and radios for around $2 per day. For the same floor space and no internet derived content the cost is considerably less at 40 cents per day.
Further information can also be obtained from the:
Reference
- APRA AMCOS Licensing – What gives APRA AMCOS the right to issue a licence for music
Disclaimer:Â This is one of a series of Advisory Services information sheets created by ADA NSW. They are intended as general guides that highlight key pieces of information frequently requested. They do not set out to provide comprehensive information about a topic and they are not legal advice. Please be mindful that information provided in these resources can change after the publication date.
