This page contains information about the licensing of master sound recordings for public performance, broadcasting and webcast rights.

If you are a New Zealand independent record label or a self-released artist and your recordings are played on the radio, on television, in bars, café’s, gyms or other public locations or communicated via the internet, then we hope this information will be useful to you.

PART ONE – INFORMATION ABOUT THE NEW PPNZ INPUT AGREEMENT AND DIRECT LICENSING

What is public performance?

If a person intends to play a sound recording or a music video that is heard or seen in a public, non-domestic environment, this is considered “public performance”.

It should be noted that a performance may also be considered “public” even if performance of sound recordings or music videos is provided for free (or no admission fee); if the audience for the performance is small; if the performance is confined to members of a club; or if the performance is made in a limited area that is not in a domestic environment.

What do PPNZ Music Licensing (“PPNZ”) have to do with this?

PPNZ is responsible for licensing and collecting income from the public performance and broadcasting of sound and video recordings on behalf of the copyright owner or administrator of those recordings. 

Thus, if a business owner is playing recorded music or music videos to enhance their business in any way, then they will need a licence granting permission from the copyright holder, and pay a suitable fee, to do so.

In order for PPNZ to have the right to license recordings to a commercial user, and collect income on behalf of the  copyright owner, PPNZ must have an agreement with the recording copyright holder or administrator. This is usually the record label or the artist.

The licence granted is known as an input agreement and as of late 2010 PPNZ is introducing a new input agreement for its members.

What is different about the new PPNZ input agreement?

The main difference between the old agreement and the new agreement is that the new agreement is a non-exclusive agreement. This means that previously, under the old input agreement, only PPNZ had the exclusive right to license recordings and collect income on your behalf.
An additional change is that, ‘webcast’ forms of broadcast are now included in the new agreement.

What is Direct Licensing?

The new PPNZ input agreement will grant PPNZ a non-exclusive right to license recordings on your behalf. This means that it is now possible for you to license your own recordings directly with a commercial user.

Therefore, through direct licensing, a commercial user seeking to play your recordings now has the opportunity to contact you directly to negotiate the terms of a license. 

Such terms may include the fee payable to you, the terms of use of your sound recordings and the method of royalty collection directly from the commercial user.

However, if you are a smaller label or self-released artist it may be likely that the cost and time involved in negotiating directly with many different commercial users of your recordings (for example radio stations, TV channels, clubs, cafes and so on) will not be cost effective. In that case it may be more efficient to have PPNZ negotiate and collect those fees on your behalf, rather than license directly with each commercial user.

Notwithstanding, we note that PPNZ only deals in blanket licences for recording copyrights. Therefore in regard to projects such as film or television productions, it would be necessary for you to negotiate specific licenses with these parties directly.

If requested, do I have to provide Direct Licensing?

If requested by a commercial user to license your recording directly, you do not have to negotiate directly and may allow PPNZ to license your recordings on your behalf.

However, in order to make it clear whether or not you wish to directly license your recordings, you need to establish your own Direct Licensing Guidelines.

Why do I need my own Direct Licensing Guidelines?

If you have signed the new PPNZ input agreement, you must have your own Direct Licensing Guidelines.

Direct Licensing Guidelines outline to anyone wishing to license your recordings how a commercial user may obtain a license for your recording. Therefore, it must be stated clearly in your specific guidelines whether:

a)    the administrative time and costs to you, involved in direct licensing are too great, and that the commercial user must contact PPNZ to negotiate the terms on your behalf;

OR

b)    you wish to directly license your recordings to any commercial user, bypassing PPNZ.

You should have these Direct Licensing Guidelines published on your website or available to supply to anyone who requests them. If they are updated or changed you should notify PPNZ of such updates.

PART TWO – DIRECT LICENSING GUIDELINES

As stated above, any label or artist who has signed the new PPNZ input agreement should establish a set of Direct Licensing Guidelines.

Your Direct Licensing Guidelines should include the following:

1.    The name of your company, record label, band or artist.
2.    Whether or not you offer direct licensing of your recordings.
3.    If you do NOT wish to offer direct licensing, but wish PPNZ to license on your behalf, then the contact details for PPNZ
4.    If you DO wish to offer direct licensing, then the process an applicant needs to go through in order to do this.

A useful template for Direct Licensing Guidelines is accessible from the Arts Law Centre in Australia here – which although for Australia, may be useful for New Zealand labels:

http://www.artslaw.com.au/LegalInformation/DirectLicensingGuidelinesSoundRecordings.asp

We further advise that you may wish to seek legal advice on your guidelines, particularly if you are intending to offer direct licensing of your sound recordings.