Consultations

Our Consultation Practices

OneMusic Australia seeks to consult widely when implementing or making changes to our licensing products or introducing new licensing products into the market. We are particularly concerned to consult with relevant industry associations, where appropriate.

When OneMusic Australia launched in 2019, more than 20 consultations were undertaken, including for industry-based licence schemes, like Hotels, and Workplace and Telephone on Hold Music, and as part of rebranding a number of existing joint APRA AMCOS and PPCA schemes, such as the Eisteddfodau and Child Care Services schemes.  

In general, the price and price structures across the suite of OneMusic’s licensing products are formulated by balancing the following factors:

  • consistency with relevant decisions of the Copyright Tribunal of Australia;
  • benchmarking against the rates and rate structures that:
    • existed prior to the commencement of OneMusic Australia; and/or
    • apply to comparable uses of comparable copyright material;
  • the extent to which the rates and rate structures require modification as a result of being combined under a single licence category or scheme;
  • the relative importance of music to the music user;
  • the nature of the businesses within the industry, sector or music user (to avoid unintended inequity or administrative burden); and
  • the range of rights exercised by that music user.

We have provided a rate setting guide  for each OneMusic licensing category that references how those factors were used in each case (See here: Fee Methodology Guides | OneMusic Australia).

In formulating a product and its pricing we:

  • aim to balance a desire for simple rate structures against user demand for flexibility, although our experience suggests the two are not always compatible;
  • look for a pricing model that is industry-appropriate, as simple as possible for music users to calculate and report, and for our team to ensure accuracy and compliance;
  • look to develop a scaled pricing structure so that ‘smaller’ businesses are not unfairly disadvantaged as compared to ‘larger’ businesses. For example, a small retailer should not be expected to pay the same licence fee as a major department store.

Our consultations are designed so that there is adequate time for any impacted party to respond to the new or revised licensing products being proposed. Generally, this is between 4 and 6 weeks taking into account any relevant seasonal factors.  We also provide notice of when we intend to finalise the consultation and implement any new or revised licensing products.

OneMusic will publish all our consultation notices on its website and seek submission from all users and user groups that we believe may be impacted by the subject matter of the proposed new or revised licensing product. OneMusic is committed to consult in good faith directly with user groups via peak industry groups or relevant associations, where appropriate. Additional details, such as timelines and deadlines, will be specific to each consultation and will be included in each consultation notice.

The nature of a consultation is not to reach agreement from impacted users regarding the proposed new or revised licensing product, although that is an outcome we obviously prefer.  Consultations are a mechanism that allow us to provide transparency to the impacted user group and to seek feedback from them regarding the proposed licensing product. Submissions received from impacted users will be carefully considered and OneMusic will take account of those views to ensure that our licensing products strike the right balance between users and the owners of the music that OneMusic administers.

Once the consultation process has been finalised, and OneMusic is comfortable that feedback has been acknowledged and, where appropriate, acted upon, OneMusic will publish and implement the new or revised licensing product. In circumstances where we feel the consultation has not been successful, or where impacted users remain dissatisfied with the outcome, the proposed licensing product may be referred to the Copyright Tribunal of Australia, either by OneMusic or any impacted user or user group.

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