Ensuring Fair Distribution of Royalties
Each year the royalties we collect are paid to creator and publisher copyright owners who created the works used by our licensees. Access Copyright's policies regarding the distribution of royalties have been set by our Board of Directors based on expert input and thorough research. Our distributions are guided by a set of principles established to make sure they are as fair and reasonable as possible:
- Distribution should be tied to usage. Royalties should be collected and distributed in a way that reflects what has actually been copied. When full usage records are not available, data should be gathered in a way that reflects this principle as far as is reasonable, and royalties should be distributed accordingly.
- The ratio of the cost of distribution (including the data collection process) to the amount being distributed should be reasonable. When the amount of royalties being collected is relatively small, lower cost methods of data collection and distribution of royalties will be chosen.
- Foreign copyright owners must enjoy the same rights as domestic copyright owners. This is a tenet of international copyright treaties and is upheld by most copyright laws and reproduction rights organizations world-wide, including Canadian law and Access Copyright.
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