CISAC, the umbrella body for authors' collecting societies, says royalties collected for creators worldwide reached a record €15.5bn in 2025, up 11.3% on the year. Its Global Collections Report, published on 4 November, is the first to count collections reported by The MLC, the US mechanical licensing body.
“The continued growth in global collections shown in our report is a strong and encouraging signal.”
Gadi Oron, CISAC Director General · imro.ie ↗
That addition lifts the headline: without The MLC, growth was 5.3%, and its inclusion accounts for roughly half of the year's increase. Music brought in €14.06bn, up 11.9%. Digital music rose 27.9% to €6.41bn, or 45.6% of music collections, and grew 11.2% when The MLC is left out.
Live and background music climbed 7.3% to €3.62bn, now the second-largest source, ahead of TV and radio, which slipped 3% to €3.32bn, the lowest since 2021. Europe remains the biggest region at €8.09bn, 52.2% of the global total, and the figures cover 228 societies in 111 countries and territories. Digital is now 42.4% of all collections, against 11.7% in 2016, and tops 70% in the Philippines, Mexico and India.
About CISAC
CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, is the umbrella body of authors' collecting societies. It is headquartered in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, and president Björn Ulvaeus has led it since May 2020. It was founded in France in 1926 by 18 authors' societies from 18 European countries, then mostly representing the dramatic arts.
Its previous report, in November 2025, put 2024 creator royalties at a record €13.97bn, up 6.6%, with digital above €5bn for the first time. The same report warned that unlicensed generative AI could divert up to 25% of creators' royalties, about €8.5bn a year, if left unregulated.
Director General Gadi Oron called the growth encouraging. Björn Ulvaeus, CISAC's president, wrote in the foreword that every royalty began with a human idea. The report also argues that radio-style local-music quotas do not carry over to streaming, and wants the discovery of local works made measurable with societies' own data.
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