CRA has hit back at the PPCA’s submission to Parliament about the 1% cap on copyright fees saying some of the information put forward by the PPCa was “selective and misleading”.
CRA CEO Joan Warner says: “This is not the rich industry that PPCA would have you believe. To put this in perspective, consider the fact that each of Australia’s 48 commercial TV stations make on average $10 million dollars in profit.
“In fact, while commercial radio total revenue grew by 21.7% between 1999 and 2003 it was well outpaced by growth in copyright fees of 24.6% and by growth in expenses at 26.1%.”
Commercial radio stations pay copyright fees to 3 different copyright collecting agencies for the music they play: to APRA (for composer’s rights in music), to PPCA (record company and artist’s rights in the finished recording) and AMCOS (for reproducing and using music in audio productions).
In total, the radio industry paid over $18 million dollars in copyright fees in 2002/03. Not just the $2.7 million noted in the PPCA submission which is paid to record companies.
Warner says: “The PPCA’s simplistic comparisons with overseas are totally and deliberately misleading . There is no commonality internationally. Each country adopts its own unique rules on what it will charge radio.
“It is worth noting though that there are 4 countries in the world (including Australia ) where the copyright law limits copyright fees paid to record companies (so Australia is not unique in that sense). These 4 countries represent about 43% of the world market for music.”
Warner says a “glaring omission” in the PPCA’s submission is the fact that in the market in which the record industry is still the most powerful in the world – the USA – record companies have absolutely no rights to any money when their recordings are played on radio.
And in Canada a large number of stations pay just pay just $100 a year in fees to PPCA’s equivalent.
Airplay is a form of free advertising for record companies according to Warner. Without airplay, they would not be able to sell as many records.
“It’s wrong to say that record companies subsidise our stations when the evidence suggests that we provide massive amounts of free advertising for them.”