Screenrights is a non-profit organisation appointed by the Australian Government to administer provisions in the Australian Copyright Act allowing educational institutions to copy from radio and television and to communicate those copies, provided they pay a fee.
Screenrights’ role is to enter into agreements with participating institutions, monitor their use of material and collect and distribute fees to the rightsholders in the programs that are identified as having been copied or communicated. This is done on a non-profit basis, with Screenrights deducting only its administrative overheads from the money it collects. Because this appointment has been made by the Government, Screenrights must put its annual accounts before each House of Parliament and comply with other guidelines issued by the Attorney-General’s Department. Screenrights also subscribes to a voluntary Code of Conduct for Copyright Collecting Societies and its performance in relation to the Code is assessed on an annual basis by the Code Reviewer.
Screenrights also provides other services to rightsholders in film and television and to the people who want to use their work. We have established a similar educational copying service in New Zealand and a service for rightsholders wanting to collect overseas royalties. We have also established a copying service for Australian government departments similar to the educational copying service, and we administer provisions in the Australian Copyright Act that ensure rightsholders are paid when free to air broadcasts of their work are retransmitted by services such as pay television.