Membership benefits

10 good reasons to become a member of Viscopy

Copyright can be complicated. Our staff are copyright experts and will ensure that your rights are properly respected and appropriately rewarded.

It is free to join Viscopy. Once you become a member, Viscopy will deduct a proportion of any royalties we collect for you to cover our administration costs. Our current charges are 25% for royalties Viscopy collects in Australia and New Zealand and 10% for royalties Viscopy collects from overseas. Viscopy members that choose to receive royalties from statutory copyright schemes for photocopying and re-broadcasting through Viscopy are charged additional commissions by CAL and Screenrights, the organisations that administer those schemes.

Licensing can be time consuming. Becoming a Viscopy member relieves you of the administrative burden involved in managing your rights.

Negotiating to protect your rights can be challenging for an artist working alone especially if the customer is a large organisation with a lot of bargaining power. Viscopy is a known and respected copyright licensing organisation. We have been licensing copyright for over ten years to customers throughout Australia and New Zealand and we represent almost 50,000 artists.

Many of our members receive royalties regularly. Whether large or small, most artists agree that royalty payments are welcome additional income.

It is very difficult for individual artists to control their copyright internationally. Membership of Viscopy means you are represented in 39 countries around the world.

Viscopy currently offers two licensing services. You can join for one or both - the choice is yours. And remember, you retain your copyright whichever Viscopy service you use.

Viscopy is committed to keeping our members informed of the latest developments in artists’ rights through our website and also at free workshops delivered by our team of experts.

You can choose Viscopy to act as your agent to collect resale royalties for you. As a benefit of Viscopy membership, there will be no fee charged for the collection of resale royalties on your behalf for the first three years of the scheme. After that time, Viscopy may charge a small service fee of 5% of any amounts collected.

Viscopy is a democratic membership organisation. All members have a vote. If you are interested in actively participating in our work, you will have opportunities to be elected to the board of directors.