Australia's performing rights organisation: Incentives, the agency problem and MetaGen

Abstract

This article uses theories relating to incentives in the music industries to examine the role the Performing Rights Organisation (PRO) in Australia plays in remunerating the different types of music artists and other music industry stakeholders within the Australian music industries. It explores this in terms of understandings of which stakeholders are ‘insiders’ (agents such as song publishers and the PRO) and ‘outsiders’ (principals such as music artists) and in terms of capital – labour relations. The agency problem arises when agents have different incentives and objectives than the principals. This is a problem because processes, actions and decisions made by agents may not align with t..