CISAC’s report shows that worldwide royalty collections for creators of music, audiovisual works, visual arts, drama and literature are likely to decline this year by up to 35%, or €3.5 billion in lost income.

The report, titled “COVID-19: Crisis, Resilience, Recovery”, shows how creators have been impacted by the pandemic and analyses the continuing effects on their income well into 2021. It documents the actions taken by CISAC’s member societies to mitigate the damage through case studies of societies in Australasia, Brazil, Colombia, France, Morocco, Norway, Spain, the UK and the US. The Report also highlights creators’ resilience and the need for further government measures to support the creative sector.

Key highlights from the report include:

• global collections hit EUR10 billion for the first time in 2019 but will slump in 2020: global collections by CISAC member societies rose 7.8% in 2019; however, after five years growth, global collections for 2020 will slump due to the COVID-19 pandemic; most societies predict falls of between 10% and 40% in 2020 and current information suggests an overall global decline in a range of 20-35%; this amounts to total 2020 losses of EUR2.0-3.5 billion; societies with lower digital collections will see larger declines;
• digital earns royalties of EUR2 billion in 2019, but remains undervalued: digital revenue continued to rise sharply in 2019, driven by increased streaming subscriptions and the strengthening of licensing agreements with digital platforms; digital will remain resilient in 2020, helped by increased subscription streaming but remuneration of digital uses of creators’ works is still undervalued, representing only one fifth of all collections globally; TV and radio remained the largest source of revenue, showing resilience despite the rise of digital; in 2019, a healthy concert and festival economy bolstered the live and background sector, but income from these sources will collapse in 2020;
• major income streams steady pre-pandemic but will see big falls in 2020: broadcast and live/background are creators’ largest income sources, at 65% of total collections; remuneration from these two separate uses will see the sharpest fall in 2020; digital has outpaced growth in other income streams, rising 27.5% in 2019 and 187% in the last five years; earnings from physical formats have stabilised in 2019 thanks to a small but devoted niche audience;
• big collectors drive growth in 2019: a few major markets helped drive global growth in 2019, and all of those will see declines in 2020; societies in major markets report widely varying decline forecasts, ranging from minus 11% in Canada (SOCAN) to minus 46% in Italy (SIAE); Switzerland entered the top ten collecting territories in 2019, replacing Spain following the suspension of SGAE from CISAC membership;
• music drives growth in 2019, but all sectors will fall sharply in 2020: music was the largest and strongest collections sector in 2019; audiovisual repertoire collections grew; in this sector, fair remuneration of creators is limited to territories granting an unwaivable remuneration right for audiovisual creators; visual arts collections declined slightly in 2019; all repertoires will see big losses in 2020, the greatest damage being in public performance and live concerts; and
• Europe collects the most for creators: more than half the world’s collections were generated in Europe in 2019; strong growth in Canada/USA has increased its share while in Latin America and the Caribbean, exchange rate effects influence Euro currency growth; Africa and Asia-Pacific have a handful of large markets that lead their revenue collections.

To read CISAC’s press release in full and for a link to the report, click here.