Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society was established in 1977 in the UK to make sure authors received the second-use payments they deserved.
If you are a writer and publish work, if you aren’t familiar with ALCS and other organisations like them, then you should get to know them. ALCS has agreements with 55 other societies in over 40 countries around the world. These authors’ collecting societies work to collect the small amount of money owed to authors from second use sources such as photocopies, cable retransmission, digital reproduction, and educational recording. This money is typically collected through fees associated with universities libraries and other libraries and archives for the reproduction of work. This is very difficult for authors to track, so joining a collection society like ALCS helps writers to trace and collect these fees due them. There is a payout twice a year, and as a member, you will receive payments on the same published works each year relevant to their second use status each year.
Like artists’ rights societies such as DACS, which we explored in a previous post, ALCS now also offers the option to collect royalties from original images and diagrams created by an author that are published along with a text. However, it is not possible to collect from two societies at the same time on any given image. So, you will need to choose if you want to collect for images from DACS or ALCS.
In addition to the collection service, ALCS, and others like them, campaign and advocate for author’s rights. A current topic of interest is the impact of AI on author’s rights. ALCS and other collection services also conduct research that is relevant to authors and their livelihoods. A lifetime membership fee in ALCS costs ยฃ36, and depending on your publication history, you could recoup this in your first payout.
Royalty collection and payout to artists and authors may be a small annual payment, but it is an important validation for the professional activity you do as an artist or author. It also can be a financial lifeline for independent artists and authors. To find out more about ALCS if you are in the UK, go to their website.
