Neighbouring Rights: A brief market overview for the curious yet time-poor
Something that we, as consultants, realise when speaking with creators is that there isn’t a lot of understanding about the size of the Neighbouring Rights (NR) market outside of one’s local territory. We speak to creators who assume there’s no money to collect in certain territories, or who’ve been sold a dream by NR agents that they can collect money in faraway territories where the creator never expected to see revenue.
So, we want to provide a brief picture of the top territories that you, as a creator, should have in your mind when it comes to navigating NR across the globe.
The reality of a growing market is that territories with established societies are pretty far ahead of those that have only been able to license recorded music more recently. At this stage it’s worth noting that the ability to license NR in recorded music, and therefore collect revenue and distribute it to creators, requires government authority. A badly functioning CMO/MLC (society) in a territory is not necessarily the fault of those at the society, local copyright law might lag behind international standards.
In general terms, the US makes up around 30% of the global NR market value, with the UK, Germany and France making up the next 30%. That’s 60% of the global market covered by four territories – with three of those having only one joint (i.e. both rights owner and performer) society each. In fact, if you look a little further, around 75% of global NR value is covered by just 10 territories (the top four plus Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Italy and Spain).
United States
As a creator (Rights Owner or Featured Performer) you can join SoundExchange and collect your remuneration for broadcast on digital radio. Other types of broadcast and public performance are not currently licensed by SoundExchange.
If you are a session musician (Non-featured Performer), you may be able to collect royalties from the AFM & SAG-AFTRA Fund. This is not a membership organization – they will pay you without membership – but be aware that if you do join either AFM or SAG-AFTRA they may end up attempting to collect revenue on your behalf internationally. This may not be what you want and, if you’re already set up to collect outside of the US, assigning this right to AFM or SAG-AFTRA is likely to cause conflicts in other territories and hold up your royalties.
As we write this, both organizations are working hard on supporting the American Music Fairness Act as it advances through Congress. If passed, this bill will ensure that creators are paid for the use of their recorded music on AM/FM radio in the US for the first time. When there are significant updates we’ll do our best to cover them, but for now it’s safe to say that if the AMFA passed there would be a significant uplift in NR revenues in the US for creators from around the world. American creators would also likely see growth in their income in other territories as the reciprocity loopholes which still exist are closed, ensuring Americans are treated the same as other nationalities.
Summary: If you're a master Rights Owner or a Featured Artist, given how straightforward it is to register and manage your SoundExchange membership, we would advise registering directly with SoundExchange for your US collections, regardless of whether you live in the US or not.
UK, Germany & France
The UK, Germany and France tend to switch the 2nd, 3rd and 4th spots in terms of the revenue generated from NR. Combined they form the next 30% of the market. PPL (UK) and GVL (Germany) serve both rights owners and performers and are free to join. In France there are two performer societies: Adami and SPEDIDAM. Adami covers featured performers whereas SPEDIDAM pays both non-featured and featured performers. So, if you’re a featured performer, you should register with both societies. There is a cost to join both SPEDIDAM and Adami, but only if you wish to have certain additional privileges such as attending annual general meetings. There are also two rights owner societies (SCPP and SPPF), both of which also require a fee to join.
In all honesty, each society has its positives and negatives – too many to cover in this post. The most important thing for us to make you aware of right now is “qualification”, and this follows the reciprocity issue that we mentioned in the US section. PPL and the French societies currently have rules where creators are deemed “non-qualifying” if they are a resident of, or record their music in, particular territories. The notable “non-qualifying” territories for those most likely to read this blog are the US and Australia (PPL have some great detail including a list of qualifying territories here). Performer qualification is an essay in itself, perhaps something we’ll cover in the coming months, but there are, of course, nuances.
If you’re a “non-qualifying” artist signed to a label from a “qualifying” territory, then you’ll qualify for remuneration from PPL. Unfortunately, the majority of US artists tend to be signed to a US label. This also doesn’t help self-releasing artists from a “non-qualifying” territory.
The good news is that the laws in Germany mean that all creators qualify for remuneration from GVL and the revenues can be significant. In recent years GVL has vastly improved its service for members, from making the process of joining easier to improving the management of repertoire and conflicts. Arguably, they have work to undertake on the performer side to match the efficiencies of the rights owner side, but the improvements of the last 10 years can’t go unnoticed.
In France it’s a little more complex. SCPP and SPPF both essentially exist for the same reason (labels/rights owners). Historically, SPPF was set up to represent independent labels whereas SCPP was for the majors. However, that’s now not the case and SCPP have a large membership, not just three companies. There are differences between the two but that’s not to say you’re better suited to one over the other.
Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Italy & Spain
These territories make up around 18% of the market. The main facts worth noting about these territories are as follows:
Netherlands – SENA has an excellent member service, a great portal and is very straightforward to join. In recent years, changes to EU law mean previously non-qualifying creators now qualify. SENA manages collections relating to broadcast and public performance, for both Performers and Rights Owners.
Netherlands – Norma is another Dutch society managing separate rights. Its focus is on home copying levies, public lending rights and audiovisual rights for performers.
Japan – RIAJ is the rights owner society in Japan and historically they have based their distribution on physical market share. However, to distribute 2025 airplay revenue they are making the switch to a track-based distribution so rights owners will be paid based on what’s been played for the first time in late 2026.
Japan – CRPA/Geindankyo is the performer society in Japan and has paid on a track level for years, but don’t allow direct affiliation by individual performers so a third party payee must be appointed.
Australia – PPCA is a joint society for rights owners and performers. However, PPCA only pay Australian performers, which in turn tends to result in issues with reciprocity (and no payment for Australians) in other territories.
Brazil – there are a number of “competing” societies in Brazil, which cover NR as well as publishing rights. The two with the most developed international departments are ABRAMUS and UBC. We have always worked with ABRAMUS but we’re always looking for the best service so we wouldn’t say this was a hard rule.
Italy – another territory with competing societies. The more established are SCF for rights owners and Nuovo IMAIE for performers (yes, there was an ‘old’ IMAIE, which went into liquidation…best not dig too deep into that). The newest society is ITSRIGHT, which handles both performer and label claims. As much as we like having options, we also can get a bit frustrated with disputing claims between competing societies.
Spain – AGEDI (rights owners) and AIE (performers) both have similar qualities to SENA: perhaps not quite as easy to join but responsive member services teams and solid portals. Both are useful to consider as gateways to collections in Latin America, which (other than Brazil) is much harder to access.
Beyond these 10 territories, there’s a long tail of other territories that can prove to be very valuable to your NR income. Canada, Denmark, Belgium, Austria and Sweden are certainly worth having in your mind when approaching NR. You’ll have noticed that the likes of China, South Korea, Argentina, Mexico, India and all of Africa haven’t been mentioned. There are various reasons for this, one being that we don’t want to turn this blog into a thesis! But predominantly the reason is that there are either no solid societies actively operating in the area or there are but they are developing and/or there’s not really a lot of revenue leaving those countries for one reason or another.
We’d be happy to chat with you to establish together what is the best way for you to collect your Neighbouring Rights revenues – get in touch here.
