The ACCC is close to a final call on APRA’s licensing arrangements, and the conditions it attaches would change what APRA has to put in front of licensees before it charges them.
Quick recap. In February 2024 APRA applied to revoke its existing authorisation and substitute a new one covering how it acquires performing rights from its members and licenses them out to music users. The ACCC granted interim authorisation in June 2024, so licences have run as normal ever since. On 12 December 2025 the ACCC issued a draft determination proposing to grant authorisation for five years, with conditions attached.
Since then there has been a pre-decision conference in early 2026, another round of submissions, and an updated set of proposed conditions published on 29 June 2026. Comments closed COB 10 July. The ACCC said it expected to make a final determination in mid 2026. It is now August and the matter is still listed as under consideration, so it is running late but it is close.
What is actually in the conditions
The conditions bind APRA, not you. But most of them are about information licensees do not currently get.
Plain English guides. APRA would have to publish and maintain a guide for every standard term licence scheme, covering what the scheme is for, what the music use categories actually mean, worked examples of the kinds of businesses covered and the typical range of fees they pay, and how to apply.
An online fee calculator. Once a licence scheme is finalised, APRA would have to put up a calculator so you can work out what you are up for before you sign anything.
Regular review. Any standard term licence scheme that has not been reviewed or consulted on in the past five years has to be reviewed by 31 December 2030, testing whether the fee components and terms still stack up against how that industry uses music now.
Consultation with the workings shown. When APRA sets up a new scheme or makes a material change to an existing one, broadly a fee rise averaging more than 5 per cent for at least 5 per cent of licensees, it has to advertise the consultation, write to affected licensees and industry bodies, and put its reasoning on the table. That includes the data behind each fee component, why a proxy measure is a fair proxy, and any benchmarks or Copyright Tribunal decisions it has leaned on.
Dispute resolution that works for groups. The ADR scheme itself is not new. It has run under an independent facilitator since 2014 and the 2024 independent review found a high rate of user satisfaction. What is new is that groups of licensees can take a dispute or a negotiation through it together, industry bodies can sit in on those group negotiations, and the scheme can be used to check whether APRA actually disclosed everything it was meant to during consultation.
Why the group piece matters
A fee dispute with a collecting society is not a fair fight when you are one venue reading a licence schedule for the first time. Going in as a group of venues, with an industry body alongside you, is a different conversation entirely.
What happens now
Nothing changes on the ground until the final determination is handed down. Interim authorisation holds and licences continue as normal in the meantime.
One thing worth keeping straight: this authorisation covers APRA’s performing right licensing only. It does not cover AMCOS or PPCA, even though most venue licences arrive bundled through OneMusic.
