International usage

On the AKM web­site under: XXX you can read all about when exact­ly which coun­try con­duct­ed its roy­al­ty pay­ment pro­cess­ing in the last 3 years. In case you don’t find the coun­try in the list, then it means that the roy­al­ty dis­tri­b­u­tion does not take place based on the respec­tive autho­rized ben­e­fi­cia­ry, but, for rea­sons of eco­nom­ic effi­cien­cy, rather in the form of a lump sum accord­ing to a deter­mi­na­tion by the board of direc­tors. That is, roy­al­ty dis­tri­b­u­tion with very small sums from coun­tries where very lit­tle music by our per­form­ers is played and very small sums are involved is charged on a flat-rate basis accordingly.

Be sure that your works are indeed reg­is­tered. You can have a look at your AKM-reg­is­tered works here in the ser­vice por­tal. For receiv­ing pay­ment for roy­al­ties for per­for­mances out­side Aus­tria, the pro­gram report­ing sub­mit­ted in the ser­vice por­tal is help­ful. You can find detailed infor­ma­tion about sub­mit­ting pro­gram reports on the AKM web­site. If, how­ev­er, despite hav­ing reg­is­tered works and sub­mit­ted pro­gram report­ing, no roy­al­ties for the respec­tive per­for­mance arrive, you can sub­mit a com­plaint through AKM regard­ing those out­stand­ing royalties.

As a first step, please have a detailed look at your bank account state­ments that you have received over the course of the pay­ments, and at the antic­i­pat­ed pay­out dates on our web­site and at what roy­al­ty dis­tri­b­u­tion cal­cu­la­tions for which works are specif­i­cal­ly miss­ing. First you have to kind­ly wait for the pay­out date of the respec­tive coun­try to have passed, and please note in that respect, cer­tain coun­tries do their pay­outs in two install­ments, for exam­ple, Switzer­land — SUISA, Spain — SGAE, Unit­ed King­dom — PRS. Only once pay­ment from both halves of the year has tak­en place can a com­plaint be processed.
Please send an email to this address [email protected] with the fol­low­ing information:

for live per­for­mances that took place out­side Aus­tria:
For pub­lic per­for­mances, either the pro­gram report­ing sub­mit­ted through the AKM ser­vice por­tal or a copy of the event reg­is­tra­tion includ­ing setlist (pro­gram report­ing) sent to the affil­i­ate CMO from the event orga­niz­er can serve as the basis for the com­plaint. In case nei­ther the pro­gram report­ing nor a copy of the event reg­is­tra­tion is avail­able, please send us the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion:
- Date of the per­for­mance
- Name and address of the event loca­tion
- Name and date of the event orga­niz­er
- A list of the works played as well as works not charged includ­ing com­pos­er or arranger details

for radio/TV broad­casts that took place out­side Aus­tria:
Through a mon­i­tor­ing ser­vice (for exam­ple, BMAT, Music­trace, MusicD­NA), you can find out when and where your works were played on the radio or on TV. These mon­i­tor­ing lists can serve as the basis for your com­plaint. Please take the step nev­er­the­less to send us a list for each respec­tive coun­try since each 2 coun­try has its own respec­tive affil­i­ate CMO respon­si­ble for roy­al­ty pro­cess­ing. In case you do not use any mon­i­tor­ing ser­vice, please send us the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion:
-Broad­cast date
-Name of the broad­cast­ing sta­tion and pro­gram
-If known, the exact time of the broad­cast
-A list of the works broad­cast along with the works not charged for roy­al­ties includ­ing com­pos­er and arranger details

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, our affil­i­ate CMOs can­not accept com­plaints with­out these details (see above). With­out this infor­ma­tion, we can­not process the complaint.

No, please do not send us any infor­ma­tion about your per­for­mances out­side Aus­tria in this case. A detailed com­par­i­son of the events or radio/TV broad­casts with the roy­al­ty cal­cu­la­tions made has to be con­duct­ed by mem­bers after the pay­ment from the respec­tive year of use.

Com­plaints are gen­er­al­ly pos­si­ble only for three years past the respec­tive use date, dead­line is the 1st of Decem­ber of the cur­rent year. For exam­ple, com­plaints for the years 2021–2023 can be sub­mit­ted up until the 1st of Decem­ber 2024 and after that, only from 2022.

Due to the miss­ing infor­ma­tion and doc­u­men­ta­tion on the part of the event orga­niz­er or due to funds not yet being col­lectible, the pro­cess­ing of com­plaints by our affil­i­ate CMOs can take time. As long as you have sub­mit­ted the com­plaint with­in the 3‑year time lim­it, how­ev­er, your right to roy­al­ties does not expire. Please exer­cise patience. As soon as a roy­al­ty dis­tri­b­u­tion cal­cu­la­tion date for your com­plaint is set, we will let you know.

No. Com­plaints for fis­cal years before your AKM mem­ber­ship unfor­tu­nate­ly can­not be processed. You’ll have to get in touch with the CMO where you were a mem­ber pre­vi­ous­ly for this.

The roy­al­ties for Germany/ GEMA for radio, TV and film are always paid out in Decem­ber for the pre­vi­ous year— so, for exam­ple, in Decem­ber 2023, roy­al­ties for the broad­cast year of 2022 are paid out. How­ev­er, only the sta­tions that are charged by pro­gram are cal­cu­lat­ed by GEMA. Should the sta­tion that played your works not be includ­ed in this list, unfor­tu­nate­ly no roy­al­ty pay­outs can be processed and there­fore also no com­plaints.
- List of radio sta­tions that are charged by pro­gram and thus eli­gi­ble for roy­al­ties
- List of TV sta­tions that are charged by pro­gram and thus eli­gi­ble for royalties

Roy­al­ties for Germany/GEMA for pub­lic per­for­mances are always paid out in Sep­tem­ber for the pre­vi­ous year— for exam­ple, in Sep­tem­ber 2023, the roy­al­ty pay­ments for the per­for­mance year for 2022 are paid out. On the GEMA web­site, you can find a fact sheet for the method of calculation.

It is gen­er­al­ly speak­ing the case that no cen­tral data­base of music works cur­rent­ly exists. Works from the AKM data­base thus do not auto­mat­i­cal­ly appear in the work data­base of the respec­tive CMO (for exam­ple, GEMA). When they do appear, it is when one use has been reg­is­tered with them already. Due to the large vol­ume of pro­gram report­ing that our affil­i­ate com­pa­nies are sent, this lack of syn­chro­niza­tion of works often takes places over the course of a com­plaint and sim­ply takes time to get worked out. Apart from that, there is the non-gov­ern­men­tal, non-prof­it umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion, CISAC or Inter­na­tion­al Con­fed­er­a­tion of Soci­eties of Authors and Com­posers), which pro­vides the ser­vice of inter­na­tion­al work search (Cisnet/Fasttrack). This is how­ev­er not reg­u­lar­ly updat­ed or nec­es­sar­i­ly used by the respec­tive CMOs.