Joint fight on revised royalties

A CINEMA owner perplexed by existing music royalty fees fears theatres will also be hit by a shake-up of how businesses pay for recorded song rights.

Cinemax Cinemas Kingscliff’s Deborah Buge says she wants to add her northern NSW theatre and the cinema lobby’s muscle to the nightclub fight against the proposal.

APRA AMCOS, which collects on behalf of composers, and PPCA, which collects for the performing artists, are to unite and charge one fee.

As it stands, APRA charges based on attendance and PPCA’s fee is based on capacity. The proposed fee by new joint entity, OneMusic Australia, would be capacity based. OneMusic says on average fees will go down but venues fear they will soar.

Ms Buge said she wanted to add her cinema’s weight to the nightclubs’ campaign.

“It will only be a matter of time before they try to do the same to us,” Ms Buge said.

She said existing APRA cinema charges did not make sense. Annual patronage figures are sent to assess royalties on music in movies screened.

“In our opinion, those royalties have already been paid by the film maker, and should not be charged twice,” Ms Buge said. She would contact the Surfers Paradise nightclub lobby to fight against the amalgamated royalty collection groups trying to charge by licensed capacity.

Consultation on the OneMusic proposal for nightclubs closes on November 27.

APRA campaign manager, revenue, Anne Blair confirmed cinemas would come under OneMusic. She said the APRA AMCOS policy for cinemas explained that when a film producer licensed film music, the copyright owner of the songs “reserves the performance and broadcast rights”.