SYDNEY, Australia — Following years of intensive lobbying by the music {industry}, a victory within the struggle on radio “caps”.
In Australia, the so-called “cap” prevents the recording {industry} from negotiating a brand new, larger charge on these sound recording royalties paid by business radio, a sum fastened at 1% of gross {industry} income, and legislated within the 1968 Copyright Act.
Presently, business radio pays an industry-wide license price of 0.4%. That involves roughly A$4.4 million ($2.94 million), from an {industry} incomes round A$1 billion in annual promoting income, in accordance with PPCA, the not-for-profit amassing society that licenses companies and broadcasters to play commercially-released sound recordings. Within the separate case of the publicly-funded Australian Broadcasting Company, the cap is 0.5 cents per head of inhabitants, for a complete annual sum of simply A$125,000 ($84,000).
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Within the last weeks of 2025, a breakthrough with the Copyright Tribunal of Australia’s willpower setting a brand new business radio sound recording broadcast license charge of 0.55 per cent of gross {industry} income, up from 0.4 per cent. In actual phrases, that’s a 38 per cent raise.
The Tribunal’s choice was printed after the music {industry}, by means of PPCA, and Industrial Radio & Audio (CRA) got here to a loggerhead in mid-2023 on a license scheme, ending greater than 20 years of rolling content material agreements. Quickly after, David Pocock, the previous Wallabies rugby union captain-turned unbiased senator, launched the Truthful Pay for Radio Play Invoice, which sought to take away the caps from laws.
“Such caps don’t exist for some other sort of copyright in Australia,” Pocock mentioned on the time, as he championed a invoice that was supported by ARIA and PPCA, the Affiliation of Artist Managers (AAM) and the Australian Impartial Report Labels (AIR) and different organizations.
CRA had opposed any modifications, warning that further prices had been a “risk” to the sustainability of regional radio.
In its choice, which might be discovered right here, the brand new charge shall be backdated to July 1, 2023 and displays the Tribunal’s findings on modifications within the broadcasting and music panorama, together with the expansion of digital radio and the expanded utilization of works PPCA represents.
The music {industry} is celebrating a battle gained, however the battle goes on. The 1 per cent cap stays stubbornly in place.
“We’ve got secured extra royalties for native artists, however the Tribunal’s ruling proves definitively that we can’t negotiate a good market charge for artists whereas the statutory 1 per cent cap stays in place,” feedback PPCA CEO Annabelle Herd, in a press release issued immediately, Jan. 14.
“The Tribunal’s reasoning makes it clear, in no unsure phrases, that the 1 per cent cap was a decisive issue all through the choice and has constricted Australian artists’ skill to obtain sound recording broadcast royalties corresponding to different markets. Caps are referenced repeatedly all through the choice, a minimum of 140 occasions actually, and the 1 per cent cap is described as a set and enduring a part of the panorama.”
CRA reckons the result’s a lose-lose.
“PPCA have claimed victory resulting from a rise within the charge payable by Australian radio. The info inform a unique story,” a spokesperson tells Mumbrella.
“The 38% achieved is in stark distinction to the large 150% improve they had been searching for from the overwhelming majority of stations. This consequence might have been achieved by means of negotiation which might have averted pricey authorized charges for each events.”
“This consequence locations additional price strain on the sustainability of Australia’s native radio {industry} who’ve an extended historical past of proudly supporting Australian music and can proceed to take action.”
Based on the PPCA’s Herd, the {industry} will proceed its struggle. “It’s now as much as Authorities and the Parliament to raise this deeply unfair and arbitrary cap,” she says.
