Publisher Membership: Assessment of Eligibility

According to the APRA AMCOS Constitution a Publisher is a company/business/enterprise that safe guards and is responsible for ensuring songwriters and composers receive income when their compositions are used commercially.

Publishers support the careers of songwriters & composers by;

Investing in them
Creating commercial opportunities for their songs through licensing exploitations
Providing co-writing collaborations
Removing the administrative burden of song split registrations
Provide royalty accounting and analysis

In order to be elected to publisher membership, the APRA & AMCOS Board must be satisfied that an applicant meets the basic criteria. Please do not apply below unless you meet the eligibilty requirements as listed on our website.

Please fill out the following Assessment questions in order to receive application forms for publisher membership via email. Once you have returned the completed, signed and witnessed application forms, they will be submitted to the APRA AMCOS Board for review. The Board meet approx every 2 months.

Membership is only open to publishing companies/businesses registered and operating in Australia, New Zealand or a South Pacific Nation.

The information entered below must match information held at
ASIC, Australian Business Register or NZ Companies Office

Your full name *

First Name Last Name

Entity (Legal) name of Company or Business: *

NOTE: Entity name CANNOT be changed once elected as a member

Entity Type (as per Australian Business Register or NZ Companies Office) *

NOTE: Entity type CANNOT be any type of Trust

Business name (if applicable):

Business Names MUST be linked to your ABN and registered with ASIC/ABR or NZ Companies Office/NZBN

Address *

Street Address

Street Address Line 2

City State / Province

Postal / Zip Code

Country *

NOTE: Open to Australia, New Zealand and/or South Pacific Nations only

Email *

example@example.com

Phone Number *

Area Code Phone Number

Website

Facebook

Instagram

ABN (must match Legal name above) *

Must match entity name & business name above

NZBN (must match Legal name above) *

Must match entity name & business name above

ACN / NZCN (if applicable)

GST Registered *

Yes No

IRD (required if GST registered)

Once you become APRA/AMCOS publisher members, which of the following best describes your business? *

Music Publishing Corporation (Pty Ltd or Ltd) which is a publisher of a copyright work Corporation (Pty Ltd or Ltd) which owns or controls the rights in a copyright work, but is not in the business of music publishing Music Production Company Corporation (Pty Ltd or Ltd) which owns or controls the rights in a copyright work, but is not in the business of music publishing Sole-Trader with a registered music publishing Business, not being a corporation, and is a publisher of a copyright work

Please answer the following questions to see whether you are eligible:

Does the publisher want to join APRA (Australasian Performing Right Association)? *

Yes No

Does the publisher want to join AMCOS (Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Association)? *

Yes No

Can you provide a Certificate of Registration of a Company or Business Name from ASIC or the NZ Companies Office? Must match the entity (legal) name and business/trading name on your application *

Yes No

Please attach a copy of your Certificate of Registration of a Company or Business Name from ASIC or the NZ Companies Office *

Browse Files

Available formats include pdf, doc, docx,txt, rtf, jpg, jpeg, png

Can you provide contact details for the following roles within your publishing company or business: Director, Copyright, Royalties, Financial Controller, Licensing, A&R etc? *

Yes No

Does the publisher control copyright in at least one musical work which has been recorded for commercial release, or published in some form? *

Yes No

Does the publisher have a publishing agreement with at least one writer who is a member of APRA or an affiliated society? *

Yes No

A publishing agreement is between two entities i.e. your legal documents will show that writer (ABN #1) assigns their rights to your business (ABN #2). Please confirm you understand that you cannot publish yourself as an Individual/Sole Trader? *

Yes No

APRA AMCOS does not provide standard publishing templates, but did you know The Arts Law Centre of Australia can provide a checklist which outlines the basic concepts of music publishing agreements here?: https://www.artslaw.com.au/product/music-publishing-checklist/

Yes No

Can you provide a copy of the standard publishing agreement in use by your company/business? Note: you will need legal advice to draw up an agreement and this must be fully executed. i.e. signed by your company representative and the writer. (Contact https://www.artslaw.com.au/ or https://www.creativelegalservices.co.nz/ for legal advice) *

Yes No

Can you confirm your standard publishing agreement is a valid publishing agreement which has details regarding terms, territory, rights etc. (Contact https://www.artslaw.com.au/ or https://www.creativelegalservices.co.nz/ for legal advice) *

Yes No

NOTE: UNSIGNED PUBLISHING AGREEMENTS ARE NOT ELIGIBLE FOR MEMBERSHIP. Please attach a copy of your signed standard publishing agreement (feel free to blank out any confidential clauses). To avoid delaying your application we recommend you seek legal advice and have a lawyer write up this legal contract. This is the legal document that writers will sign when signing to your publishing company and they will likely be discussing the terms with their legal representation as well. It must include the ABN listed above. *

Browse Files

Agreement attached MUST be signed by writer & publisher.

Can you confirm your publishing agreement recognises the prior and/or subsequent assignment of performing rights by the composer/songwriter to APRA or an affiliated international performing right society, in a form such as the following clause: “…The Writer hereby assigns to the Publisher all copyright in musical compositions and lyrics written by him/her, subject to his/her assignment of rights to the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) or an affiliated performing right society…”. *

Yes No

Please indicate where the above clause can be found in your attached publishing agreement (e.g. Clause 2.3 or page 2) *

Please confirm that the standard publishing agreement attached above has been signed by both a songwriter and publisher *

Yes No

Please confirm that as a publisher member, you understand that part of your admin role is to register with APRA AMCOS your ongoing agreement details with your writer members in our database? This includes when your agreements are amended, new specific works are added or when agreements terminate. *

Yes No

Please confirm that as a publisher member, you understand that part of your admin role is to register with APRA AMCOS your musical works in our database? *

Yes No

Please answer these questions about your works:

Approximate number of songwriters you control? *

Approximate number of works in your catalogue? *

Do you currently publish multiple songwriters? *

Yes No

Please list up to 3 songwriters that you publish *

Please list up to 3 works titles that you publish *

If you have signed admin deal with another publisher and they will be doing the registration of your works please let us know who that is here:

Are you an APRA Writer Member applying for Publisher Membership? *

Yes No

If you are an APRA Writer Member, do you publish your own works? *

Yes No

Please confirm you can meet the following further requirements:

APRA and AMCOS publisher membership is not open to record labels. Is the company or business also operating as a music publisher? *

Yes No

I can confirm I have access to a PC or Mac running Windows. Windows software is required to register musical works and agreements in CMS (APRA's copyright database) and does not run on OSX. *

Yes No

I can confirm that my publishing business has a local bank account located in Australia, New Zealand or a South Pacific Nation. The bank account cannot be an overseas account. *

Yes No

I understand that I will no longer be eligible for publisher membership if my ABN/NZBN is deregistered, cancelled or if my business is restructured which requires a new ABN/NZBN. If this occurs I will advise APRA AMCOS. *

Yes No

I can confirm the publishing agreement I attached above has a specific clause that recognises the prior and/or subsequent assignment of performing rights by the composer/songwriter to APRA or an affiliated international performing right society *

Yes No

I acknowledge I have read the Publisher Membership Guide *

Yes No

I acknowledge I have read the Frequently Asked Questions *

Yes No

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