Music royalties span several related but different measures: creator-rights collections, recorded-music trade revenue, platform-attributed payments and collecting-society distributions. In 2024, each measure showed substantial digital activity, but the totals are not interchangeable. This guide brings together the latest figures and keeps each source’s currency, geography and measurement period explicit.
Contents: Global collections · Recorded music · Regional patterns · Spotify and artist reach · Mechanical royalties · Collecting societies
Global music royalty collections
The CISAC Global Collections Report 2025 reports creator-rights collections worldwide. CISAC’s total creator royalty collections reached €13.97 billion in 2024, a 6.6% increase from the previous year. Within that total, music-repertoire collections reached €12.59 billion, up 7.2% year over year.
Digital creator royalty collections were €5.14 billion in 2024, increasing 11.2%. Live and background creator royalty collections reached €3.60 billion, up 9.6%, while television and radio collections reached €3.94 billion, up 0.8%. For the music repertoire specifically, digital collections grew 10.8% and live and background collections grew 10.4%.
Digital plus live and background income represented three-quarters of CISAC music-repertoire collections in 2024. Over the longer period from 2015 through 2024, CISAC’s total creator royalty collections were 65.2% higher.
These figures describe collections by creator-rights organizations, rather than the complete value of every music transaction. The source’s definition is important when comparing CISAC data with recorded-music revenue or a streaming service’s own payout figures.
Recorded music revenue and streaming
The IFPI Global Music Report 2025: State of the Industry measures global recorded-music trade revenue. That revenue reached US$29.6 billion in 2024, up 4.8% year over year. Streaming generated US$20.4 billion, up 7.3%, and represented 69.0% of global recorded-music revenue.
Paid subscriptions remained the largest streaming growth engine. Users of paid subscription music accounts reached 752 million globally in 2024, an increase of 10.6%. Subscription-streaming revenue grew 9.5%, compared with 1.2% growth for ad-supported streaming revenue.
Other recorded-music categories remained material:
| Revenue category | 2024 result | Year-over-year change or share |
|---|---|---|
| Global recorded-music trade revenue | US$29.6 billion | +4.8% |
| Streaming revenue | US$20.4 billion | +7.3%; 69.0% of total |
| Physical recorded-music revenue | US$4.8 billion | −3.1%; 16.4% of total |
| Performance-rights revenue | US$2.9 billion | +5.9%; 9.7% of total |
| Downloads and other digital formats | — | 2.8% of total |
| Synchronisation | — | 2.2% of total |
The category shares are shares of global recorded-music revenue in 2024. They should not be added to CISAC’s collection totals: IFPI is reporting recorded-music trade revenue, while CISAC is reporting creator-rights collections.
Regional and national patterns
CISAC’s 2024 regional results show that royalty growth was uneven. West European collections reached €7.09 billion, up 6.1% year over year. Collections in Canada and the USA reached €3.52 billion, up 10.0%, while Asia-Pacific collections reached €1.92 billion, up 2.9%.
Eastern Europe recorded €566 million, up 13.8%, and Africa recorded €90 million, up 14.2%. Latin American collections totaled €786 million, down 0.6%. In Africa, music collections drove a 10.0% increase in CISAC collections in 2024.
| CISAC region | 2024 collections | Year-over-year change |
|---|---|---|
| West Europe | €7.09 billion | +6.1% |
| Canada and USA | €3.52 billion | +10.0% |
| Asia-Pacific | €1.92 billion | +2.9% |
| Latin America | €786 million | −0.6% |
| Eastern Europe | €566 million | +13.8% |
| Africa | €90 million | +14.2% |
Over 2015–2024, Canada and USA CISAC collections doubled to €3.5 billion in 2024. Digital dependence was especially high in selected markets: digital represented 89.9% of CISAC collections in Mali in 2024. Vietnam’s digital share was 89.6%, and its digital collections were 1,732.5% higher in 2024 than in 2015.
The Mali and Vietnam percentages describe the digital share of CISAC collections in those markets, not a universal payout rate for artists. The Vietnam comparison also spans 2015–2024, so it is a long-period change rather than a single-year growth rate.
Streaming-platform payouts and artist reach
Spotify reports company figures in its Royalties Guide and related newsroom material. Spotify paid more than US$10 billion to the music industry in 2024. Its annual music-industry payouts increased tenfold over the decade ending in 2024, and cumulative payments were approximately US$60 billion through 2024.
Independent artists and labels generated more than US$5 billion from Spotify in 2024, about half of total Spotify royalties according to Spotify’s report. More than 71,000 artists generated at least US$10,000 from Spotify alone in 2024.
The platform also reported a sharp increase at the 10,000th-ranked artist: that artist’s Spotify royalties rose from US$34,000 in 2017 to US$131,000 in 2024. Nearly 1,500 artists generated US$1 million on Spotify in 2024, and more than 80% of those artists had never placed a song in Spotify’s Top 50 chart.
Spotify’s regional reports add context to the global figures. European artists generated €1.7 billion in Spotify royalties in 2024, up 15% year over year and nearly double the 2020 level. French artists earning more than €100,000 on Spotify were four times as numerous in 2024 as in 2017.
In Brazil, artists generated more than BRL1.6 billion in Spotify royalties in 2024. That was a 31% year-over-year increase and more than double the 2021 figure. These are platform-reported payments or royalties attributed by Spotify; they are not a standardized per-stream rate and should not be treated as the total income received by every rightsholder.
Mechanical royalty processing and unmatched funds
The MLC 2024 Annual Royalty Recap covers U.S. blanket mechanical royalties. During its 12 monthly distributions in 2024, The MLC processed US$1.05 billion in U.S. blanket mechanical royalties and directly distributed US$814.7 million. It processed an additional US$45.0 million in 2024 usage covered by digital service provider voluntary licenses.
Including that voluntary-license usage, The MLC’s total royalties distributed in 2024 were US$859.7 million. The average initial match rate for the 2024 distributions was 84.1%, rising to 89.8% after reprocessing; the latter result was measured by February 2025.
At the end of 2024, approximately US$519.8 million in blanket royalties were pending distribution. Blanket unmatched royalties totaled approximately US$273.8 million, equal to 8.4% of processed royalty pools. Blanket unclaimed royalties totaled approximately US$225.2 million, equal to 6.9% of processed royalty pools.
The match-rate and pending-fund figures show why registration and data quality matter in mechanical royalty administration. “Unmatched” and “unclaimed” are separate categories in The MLC’s reporting, and the percentages relate to its processed royalty pools rather than to all music royalties worldwide.
Collecting-society distributions
Collecting societies provide territory- and repertoire-specific views of royalty flows. SoundExchange reported US$11.9 billion in lifetime distributions through December 31, 2024. In 2024, its consolidated royalties collected and distributed each totaled US$1.1 billion. SoundExchange paid out 90% of royalties collected within 45 days of receipt in 2024.
In Canada, SOCAN reported C$559.4 million in 2024 revenue, up 6.9% year over year. Canadian digital music-use revenue reached C$208.7 million, up 10.8%, while SOCAN distributed a record C$512.4 million to rightsholders, up 17.5%.
PRS for Music distributed £1.020 billion to rightsholders in 2024, an 8.1% increase. Distributions from international income reached £356 million, up 20.1%.
APRA AMCOS reported A$740.0 million in group revenue for FY2024, up 7.2%. Net distributable revenue reached A$634.1 million, up 6.5%. The organization paid royalties to 62,827 members in Australia and 26,653 members in Aotearoa New Zealand, and paid royalties on 1,830,322 unique songs and compositions, up 12.4% year over year.
APRA AMCOS uses FY2024, not calendar 2024. More broadly, these organizations report different territories, repertoires and definitions: CISAC reports creator-rights collections; IFPI reports recorded-music trade revenue; Spotify reports company-attributed platform payments; and collecting societies report their own collection and distribution operations. Comparing the figures is most useful for identifying scale and direction, not for combining them into one worldwide royalty total.