SYDNEY, Australia — As it celebrates its 100th anniversary, APRA AMCOS this week opens its doors for a once-in-a-quarter century gathering of international rights professionals.
The Australasian PRO this week hosts the board of directors of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), which represents 228 societies across 111 countries, for what marks the first such assembly in Sydney for 25 years.
The meeting brings together heads of major collective management bodies including ASCAP (U.S.), JASRAC (Japan), PRS for Music (U.K.), SOCAN (Canada) and UBC (Brazil), as well as organizations like DACS (UK), which manages rights for visual artists, and SACD (France), which manages rights for audiovisual directors and screenwriters.
The meetings of APRA AMCOS reps and counterparts from its sister collecting societies, united under the CISAC banner, will explore at length the challenges of the AI revolution — the “most significant threat in a generation,” a statement reads.
“APRA and CISAC have been advocating for creators’ rights for 100 years, and to be able to meet on home soil to both celebrate our history and look forward to our next 100 years together is a great honor,” comments AMCOS CEO Dean Ormston, who has been chair of CISAC since 2025. “We stand strong in our collaboration with CMOs from around the world, united under the CISAC banner, as we advocate for the value of human creativity in the face of the AI revolution.”
AI is the issue of our time. A recently published study, commissioned by CISAC, found that the market size for Generative AI music could reach up to €16 billion ($20.9 billion) annually by 2028, with as much as 24% of music creators’ revenues at risk without effective regulation and licensing frameworks.
APRA AMCOS, meanwhile, was a key cog in the creative industries‘ successful lobbying efforts that saw Australia reject a Text and Data Mining exception into its copyright laws, effectively shutting the lid on mass-scale unlicensed use of creative intellectual property.
“The scale of transformation we are witnessing today calls for the same collective resolve that defined our founding a century ago,” comments CISAC director general Gadi Oron. “Our responsibility — now as always — is to ensure that innovation strengthens the creative economy rather than diminishes it, and that creators receive a fair share of the value their works generate. Human creativity is the fuel that powers AI systems and it must be protected, respected and fairly remunerated.”
APRA AMCOS raises its century with a full year of special programs. As previously reported, those birthday festivities include the launch of a new “hall of fame-style” event in November, along with the “biggest ever” APRA Music Awards in Sydney in April and Silver Scroll Awards/Kaitito Kaiaka in New Zealand this October, and the first-ever Gudinski SongHubs in Melbourne, a nod to the late, great Mushroom Group founder Michael Gudinski.
Formed by six music publishers a century ago, in 1926, the Australasian Performing Right Association now represents over 128,000 music creators.
Revenue and distributions continue to push into unchartered territory. Including its sister organization AMCOS, the Australasian rights organization last October posted annual revenue of A$787.9 million ($511 million) for 2024-25, up 6.5% from the previous financial year, with net distributable revenue at A$683.4 million ($443 million), up 7.8% year-on-year, also an all-time result.
Based on recent results, Billboard reported at the time, the A$800 million revenue milestone should be easily surpassed in the next annual report. The magical A$1 billion figure is on the near horizon.
