Community radio licences

Already licensed?

You'll need to complete a Schedule 5 form annually.

• Permanent stations - access your form
• Temporary stations - access your form
• Radio for the Print Handicapped - access your form

Where does your money go?

Our distribution of community radio licence fees as royalties is based on music use data provided by:

• a sample of stations (57 stations from various genres and formats) who provide data on a rostered basis;
• and Amrap who provides additional playlists from stations who use Amrap Pages software (over 25% of community stations use this service)

This system keeps our administrative costs low, minimises the administrative burden on you and ensures more money goes to music creators.

If you are unsure whether your community radio station is required to report, please contact us.

Where can community radio legally source music from?

We often receive queries from community radio stations about legal sources of music, such as 'Can we stream Spotify or convert YouTube videos for broadcast?' or 'Where can we legally source music?'

Here's some tips:

• YouTube and Spotify operate services for personal use only. See YouTube Terms of Service - 5. Your Use of Content and Spotify User Guidelines - point 2. Most other streaming services have similar prohibitions, which means it is not okay to use these services to obtain music for broadcast. Please note these prohibitions are not mandated by APRA AMCOS.
• Legitimate music sources include purchased digital downloads from sites such as iTunes or Google Play Music, CDs purchased from a store or provided by record companies or artists.
• Our licence also allows a station’s broadcasters to copy their own (legitimately sourced) music onto station’s servers for other broadcasters to use.
• You can broadcast music supplied by Amrap, which provides a fantastic free music service that promotes Australian artists.
• Under the AMCOS section of your community radio licence, you have access to over one million Production Music tracks, which can be used in programmes, sponsorship announcements, and station promotions. All you have to do is contact one of the listed suppliers, advise them that your station holds an AMCOS licence and request access to download tracks from their sites. This music is available free of charge, provided you have acknowledged to us that you are using it and paid the relevant annual fee.