Worldwide royalty collections for creators of music, audiovisual, visual arts, drama and literature reached a record €9.65 billion (£8.31bn) in 2018, according to the 2019 Global Collections Report by CISAC.
Royalties from digital sources jumped 29% year-on-year to €1.64bn (£1.4bn), thanks to the growth of music and subscription video on-demand services. Creators’ digital income has nearly tripled in the last five years - it now accounts for 17% of collections compared to 7.5% in 2014.
“It’s very positive in music,” CISAC director general Gadi Oron told Music Week. “For us, [streaming] is a success story and the most impressive figure in our report is the jump that we saw in income for digital royalties. There are very impressive figures from markets like Mexico and South Korea, which is very advanced when it comes to digital.”
The big drivers of global growth were increases in major markets’ digital collections, in particular the US, France and Japan. The UK results for 2018 were down 1.2%.
This growth has been fuelled by new and extended licensing deals between collection societies and digital platforms, including Spotify, Facebook, Netflix and Amazon.
Global collections for music repertoire were up 1.8% at €8.5bn (£7.3bn), powered by a 29.6% annual growth in digital income and the continuing surge in subscription streaming revenues. Digital now accounts for 19.1% of music collections.
Digital is our future and revenues to creators are rising fast
Jean-Michel Jarre
Total collections in 2018 for all repertoires grew 0.9% year-on-year, the fifth consecutive year of growth. Over the five years since 2014, global collections by CISAC societies are up 25.4%.
Declining income from physical media is offset by digital growth and the continuing resilience of income from TV & radio and live & background, the two biggest sources for collections. TV & radio income for music repertoire was down 3.1% year-on-year but was still a substantial €3.294bn (£2.83bn), 38.8% of the total. Income from live & background increased by 0.8% to €2.568bn (£2.21bn), 30.3% of the total.
“The good news for us is that these income sources remain stable,” said Oron. “They are resilient to change. We don’t see an increase but we also don’t see a drop, which is good news for creators. But the big news is, of course, from the digital market.”
The report shows that Asia-Pacific is a digital leader, with an online share of 26.3%, twice that of Europe at 13.3%. Australia, Sweden, South Korea, Mexico and China are in a growing group of digital markets where online revenues are now the top collections source.
CISAC has also highlighted the need for legislative action to bring fair creators’ remuneration, calling on governments to follow the example of the landmark EU Copyright Directive.
Jean-Michel Jarre, CISAC president, said: “Digital is our future and revenues to creators are rising fast, but there is a dark side to digital, and it is caused by a fundamental flaw in the legal environment that continues to devalue creators and their works. That is why the European Copyright Directive is so momentous for creators everywhere. The Directive has sent an amazing, positive signal around the world, building a fairer balance between creators and the tech platforms”.
With 232 member societies in 120 countries, CISAC represents over four million creators from all geographic regions and artistic repertoires including music, audiovisual, drama, literature and visual arts.
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