Steady Growth, Shaky Future? CISAC Warns of Unchecked AI Even As Royalties Rise

Over the past few years, the revenue of the organizations that collect and distribute public performance and mechanical royalties have gone up – by a collective 7.2% in 2021, an eye-popping 28.9% in 2022 and then 7.6% in 2023. But the pandemic bust and subsequent recovery boom made it hard to see trends that would shape the future of this part of the business. With the Nov. 6 release of the organization’s Global Collections Report, though, a clearer picture of this part of the music publishing business is starting to emerge.  

Revenue from music collections hit 12.59 billion euros ($13.62 billion), up 7.2% from 2023, a rate of growth not so different from the previous year, while revenue from digital sources rose 10.8% to 5.01 billion euros ($5.42 billion). This, too, seems to be falling into something of a pattern: Digital revenue jumped 35.1% in 2022, then 9.5% in 2023. Revenue from live and background music – played at concerts and in places like restaurants and bars – also seems to be settling into a groove. After falling more than 45% during the pandemic, it grew 68.5% in 2022, 21.8% in 2023, and 10.4% last year to 3.38 billion euros ($3.66 billion). Revenue from television and radio climbed 1.2% to 3.42 billion euros ($3.7 billion), after growing 11.8% in 2022 and falling 5.3% in 2023. 

Over the past decade, global music collections rose by more than two-thirds – and the mix of revenue has changed significantly. In 2024, revenue from digital sources made up 39.8% of collection organization revenue, while television and radio accounted for 27.1% and live and background music for 26.8%. Digital and live are expected to continue to grow, especially since live revenue in most cases is pegged to concert ticket prices.  

Globally, the picture hasn’t changed as fast as some hoped. Western Europe still accounts for almost half the market (47.5%) and revenue there grew 6.6%. Including the U.S. and Canada, where revenue grew 10%, the West accounts for more than 75% of global collections. For years, publishing executives expected significant growth in African and Latin America, but so far it has not lived up to expectations – revenue from Africa grew 10% while that of Latin America rose 3.3%. The latter region’s growth was hurt by a currency decline in Argentina, while growth in Asia was hampered by a slight decline in Japan for the same reason. The standout region for growth was Eastern Europe, which CISAC counts as everything from the former Iron Curtain to Central Asia, where collections grew 17.9%.  

These CISAC statistics capture a significant amount of the music publishing business – but not all of it. They include all of the revenue that goes through collecting societies that are CISAC members, most of which operate on a nonprofit or not-for-profit basis, plus private companies like BMI and SESAC. (These numbers do not include GMR, or Global Music Rights, and some other entities.) In most of the world, unlike the U.S., societies collect both public performance and mechanical rights revenue, and these numbers reflect that. CISAC does not currently account for money collected for mechanical rights by the MLC, although that may change next year. These numbers also exclude revenue collected for multi-territory online rights assigned by publishers to ICE and some other European entities. For all those omissions, however, the CISAC report is one of the better ways to get a sense of music publishing.

CISAC is an organization that goes far beyond music – it includes 228 collective management organizations in 111 countries and territories – including those that collect money for the use of audiovisual works, visual art, literature and drama. Much of this non-music revenue comes from Europe, where countries have an array of collecting societies for different media. Music is the biggest source of revenue by far, however, accounting for about 90% of a 13.97-billion-euro ($15.11 billion) total, which was up 6.6% from 2023. Overall, digital revenue for all rights rose by 11.2%. 

“This year’s results are testament to the adaptability and resilience of creators’ collective rights management in a rapidly changing environment,” CISAC director general Gadi Oron said in a statement distributed with the report. In the same document, CISAC president Björn Ulvaeus noted that “In 2024, authors’ societies delivered record royalties to creators worldwide. This achievement is a cause for celebration, reflecting the resilience of collective management and the value of creative works in a growing market.” 

Oron and Ulvaeus also took the opportunity to issue warnings about the potential threat of generative artificial intelligence. Without proper regulation, AI “risks undermining the very foundation of creative value,” Oron writes in his foreword to the report. So far, he notes, the European Commission’s implementation of the AU AI Act has fallen short of the protections in it, which amounts to “a betrayal” that “underscores the urgency of ensuring that the rights of authors are upheld in practice, not just in principle.” 

In his own foreword, Ulvaeus takes a similar tone. A study commissioned by CISAC projected that as much as a quarter of creators’ royalties could be lost without AI regulation as the market for AI-generated content could reach 64 billion euros in three years. “This is value flowing away from the individuals who give culture its meaning,” Ulvaeus writes. “I have urged that creators must be at the decision table, not on the outside looking in.”