Earlier this year, APRA, AMCOS and PPCA launched a joint initiative in Australia aimed at making music licensing easier and simpler to access for Australian businesses. The initiative is called OneMusic, and it brings together in one bundle licences of all of the copyright works in each of the PPCA, APRA and AMCOS catalogues. Think musical works, sound recordings, music videos and the like.
Previously, PPCA would issue licences of things like sound recordings and music videos, and APRA AMCOS would do the same for music and lyric copyrights, and businesses who wished to use these works would need to obtain separate licences from each of those organisations. This initiative seeks to cut administration time and increase uptake of music licences.
A similar initiative has been operating in NZ for about 6 years and the Australian version will hopefully benefit from the lessons learned in making that initiative the success it is today.
The new licences are presented in a user-friendly portal on the OneMusic webpage, from which licensing enquiry forms can be obtained and in some cases be submitted online. The licences on the portal aim to cover most types of business-related music copyright licence needs. Curiously, although OneMusic trumpets the ability of music to affect the flavour of cheese, with hip hop music imparting a stronger, fruitier taste, there are no cheese-making licences on the portal. This begs the question – if a beat drops in a forest (of cheese) and no-one (except the cheese) hears it, does it need a licence? One presumes the answer is yes, but time will tell whether it gets its own category at OneMusic.