Björn Ulvaeus has used his foreword to CISAC’s 2026 Global Collections Report to argue that “human creativity is not the enemy of artificial intelligence. It is the reason artificial intelligence exists.”
Every royalty in the report, writes the ABBA co-founder and CISAC President, “began with a human idea.”
According to its music section, global songwriter royalties collected hit a record €14.06 billion (USD $15.87 billion, at the IRS’s 2025 average annual exchange rate) in 2025.
That’s up 11.9% YoY from a restated €12.56 billion in 2024, and 83.5% higher than in 2016. You can read the full report here.
The foreword repeats the central line of the speech Ulvaeus gave in Geneva in July, but not that speech’s specific demand: that creators be “paid for what went in” via a share of AI subscription revenues.
In the report, he writes that creators “are not asking to slow progress. We are asking to help shape it.”
CISAC Director General Gadi Oron said that “as we enter the age of AI, past growth cannot be taken for granted.”
Here are five things you should know about the music figures in the report…
1. The MLC’s first-time inclusion accounted for more than half of global growth
According to CISAC, the increase was largely driven by the first-time inclusion of the US-based Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC), which collects US mechanical royalties from streaming and download services and joined CISAC in 2025. Excluding The MLC, global music collections grew 5.3%.
US digital music collections rose 71.3% YoY to €2.39 billion ($2.69 billion) in 2025. Excluding The MLC, they totaled €1.55 billion ($1.75 billion), up 11.4%.
The €835 million ($942 million) difference accounts for more than half of the €1.50 billion ($1.69 billion) increase in global music collections.
Overall, US music collections rose 29.7% to €4.07 billion ($4.60 billion), keeping the US as the world’s largest market. Excluding The MLC, US collections rose 3.1%, according to CISAC.
France and the UK remained the second- and third-largest markets, with collections of €1.59 billion ($1.79 billion, up 7.5%) and €1.28 billion ($1.45 billion, up 8.9%), respectively.
By region, Canada/USA led growth at 26.6%, ahead of Central and Eastern Europe (12.8%), Latin America and the Caribbean (9.4%), Western Europe (6.8%), and Asia-Pacific (1.9%), while Africa declined 2.3%. Western Europe remained the largest region, at €6.35 billion ($7.17 billion).
Excluding The MLC, Canada/USA music collections grew by around 2.8%, by MBW’s calculation. That would have made Central and Eastern Europe the fastest-growing region, as it was in 2024.
CISAC says Canada/USA is also the fastest-growing region since 2016, up 149.8%, though that figure, like the 83.5% global rise, includes The MLC. Even without it, MBW estimates the region is up around 103%, still the fastest.
2. Digital services accounted for 45.6% of music collections
Digital covers royalties from licensing streaming and download services, from music platforms such as Spotify to video-on-demand services such as Netflix.
Digital music collections rose 27.9% to €6.41 billion ($7.24 billion) in 2025, or 45.6% of the total, making digital the largest source of music collections. Excluding The MLC, they grew 11.2%.
After the US, the largest digital music markets were France (€731 million, up 12.4%), the UK (€678 million, up 15.6%), Japan (€434 million, up 9.3%), and Germany (€327 million, up 5.7%).
New licensing deals with Orange and Bouygues Telecom lifted digital revenue in France, while the UK benefited from growth in paid streaming subscriptions and broadcaster video-on-demand services such as BBC iPlayer.
In China, digital collections rose 61.4% to €30 million ($34 million) after local society MCSC renewed agreements with Tencent Music and NetEase Cloud Music, following four years of negotiation.
In South Korea, digital collections fell 1.6% to €135 million in euro terms, but rose 7.1% in local currency.
3. Live & Background overtook TV & Radio
Live & Background, which covers royalties from concerts and festivals as well as music played in shops, restaurants, hotels, and gyms, overtook TV & Radio for the first time to become the second-largest source of music collections.
The category grew 7.3% to €3.62 billion ($4.09 billion), accounting for 25.8% of global music collections.
Growth was led by France (up 9.3%), where live performance revenue jumped 44.9%, followed by the UK (up 8.5%) and Germany (up 6.9%).
Live performance collections rose 14.9% to €1.4 billion, the third straight year above €1 billion, while background music rose 5.6% to €1.2 billion. Both figures are based on a sample of societies’ data, so they don’t add up to the category total.
4. TV & Radio fell to its lowest level since 2021
TV & Radio music collections fell 3.0% to €3.32 billion ($3.74 billion) in 2025, the lowest total since 2021. The category accounted for 23.6% of global music collections.
CISAC says the decline was primarily due to decreases in the largest collecting markets, which together account for nearly two-thirds of global broadcast revenue. In France, broadcast collections fell 4.4%.
Smaller markets told a different story. In India, the late payment of a broadcaster licensing fee drove a 184.1% increase, more than reversing the previous year’s 50.4% fall.
Malaysia’s TV & Radio collections rose 367.5% to a record €4.7 million after it received three years of outstanding broadcaster payments.
TV & Radio revenue also rose 70.2% in Argentina, which the report attributes to rising radio advertising revenue, and 27.4% in Belgium due to a back payment.
5. The decline in physical royalties slowed
Music collections from CDs and video fell 0.9% to €326 million ($368 million) in 2025, compared with a 13.2% decline the previous year.
The decrease was driven by falls of 47.5% in the US, 9.4% in South Korea, and 6.5% in Germany. Excluding those three markets, physical collections grew 8.3%.
Japan remained the world’s largest collecting country for physical music royalties, with collections up 0.9% to €116.0 million.
France made the largest contribution to growth, according to CISAC, with physical collections up 37.9% to €21.9 million.
In Greece, growth of 784.4% was driven by new mechanical licensing agreements with Universal Music covering the local market.
Elsewhere in the music data, private copying collections fell 6.6% to €252 million, while synchronization collections fell 5.4% to €58 million.
