The copyright society publishes its own tariff scheme on its websites and collects a nominal administrative fee on every transaction.
Collecting societies can sell blanket licences, which grant the right to perform their catalogue for a period of time.
For example, Apple must submit the download reports for the iTunes Store, which are used to determine their royalty payments.
[7] Copyright collecting societies in the European Union usually hold monopolies in their respective national markets.
[8] In Austria, the Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers (Gesellschaft der Autoren, Komponisten und Musikverleger, AKM) has a statutory monopoly.
In order to do the business of issuing or granting license in respect of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works incorporated in a cinematograph films or sound recordings it is necessary that the organization be registered as a copyright society under Section 33.
The proviso to section 33 sub clause 3 states ‘Provided that the Central Government shall not ordinarily register more than one copyright society to do business in respect of the same class of works’.
PPL represents producers and record companies and is a major licensor of music to events and establishments.
ISRA represents the interests of singers and aims to protect performer's rights as enshrined in S.38[18] and S.38A of the Copyrights Act 1957.
The validity of PPL operating as a company has been debated and was considered by the 2014 case of Leopold cafe v. Novex Communication[22] in which the Bombay High Court that s.30 of the Copyright Act 1957 allows a duly authorised agent to issue licenses on behalf of authors and other owners, therefore organisations can perform the activities of a copyright society without being registered under S.33 but it will not be referred to as a copyright society and cannot issue licenses in its own name.
An author can only be part of one PRO, as the five existing PROs in the US have distinct systems for tariffs and payment of royalty as they compete with each other in the market.
The five major PROs in the music industry in the US are ASCAP, SESAC, BMI, AllTrack,[23] and SoundExchange.
The court held in this case that the actions of PROs were not anti competitive as there was no bar on obtaining licenses from individual copyright holders.
Previously, these unclaimed royalties were held by digital service providers like Spotify to the detriment of the authors.
While this does take away some agency of artists, there has been overwhelming support for this legislation from the music industry as it will ensure that licensing and royalty payments are transferred on a fair basis.