The Council of Small Business of Australia (COSBOA) has lodged a privacy complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner about the behaviour of the Australasian Performing Rights Association and the Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (APRA AMCOS), and the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia Limited (PPCA).
These organisations licence businesses to use copyrighted musical works and copyrighted sound recordings, respectively. In July 2019 they launched a new venture, OneMusic Australia, which allows businesses to take out a single licence for both rights (musical works and sound recordings).
COSBOA has criticised OneMusic and APRA AMCOS in the past, alleging “unreasonably high licence fees, lack of transparency, inaccurate distribution of royalties to members, and bullying behaviour”.
The Council now alleges that the organisations have been sharing personal information about their licensees with each other in order to raise licence revenue for OneMusic Australia.
Allegation rejected
APRA AMCOS and PPCA have rejected COSBOA’s allegation that they have acted contrary to their privacy obligations.
Both organisations take their obligations under the Privacy Act extremely seriously, a spokesperson told Retail World, and at all times have acted in accordance with the terms of their respective privacy policies and their agreements with licensees.
“OneMusic Australia is a joint licensing initiative under which PPCA has appointed APRA AMCOS as its agent to issue sound recording public performance licences on its behalf. It is entirely appropriate for PPCA to share licensing information with its agent for this business purpose.”