London, UK (November 8, 2023)—For the ninth straight year, Will Page, former Spotify chief economist, has crunched the numbers to calculate the global value of music copyright. He says that last year, for the first time, “that number starts with a four.” That number, Page has determined in a new report, is $41.5 billion, a 14% increase over 2021’s $36.4 billion total.
“For years, music was ridiculed as the sick man of ‘media verticals,’” Page writes. A quick calculation shows that consumer spending on music is more than twice that of the global movie box office and just under half of the online video streaming market. That said, all those sectors are dwarfed by the gaming industry, he notes, according to researcher IDG Consulting.
Page reaches his final number by consolidating IFPI’s Global Music Report, CISAC’s annual Global Collections Report and Music & Copyright’s analysis of music publishing, filtering out overlapping data while also noting fluctuating exchange rates.
The significant increase in value from 2021 to 2022 was split three ways between the labels, with $26 billion in revenue; direct licensing with publishers, which accounted for $4.1 billion; and collecting societies, which brought in $11.4 billion—one-third more than during the 2020 lockdown period. Historically, Page writes, performing rights income has dominated the latter segment, and general-purpose licensing (restaurants, retail, concerts) has bounced back big-time, post-pandemic. Digital collections have exactly doubled since 2019, he also comments.
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Meanwhile, he says, digital income growth has been slowing, especially in western markets, but is being offset by accelerating demand for CDs in Asia and vinyl in Europe and the U.S.
Page says that the $5 billion in growth over 2021 is split evenly between labels and artists on one side, and songwriters, publishers and their CMOs (collective management organizations) on the other, with both adding around $2.5 billion each. That said, is the CMO-led rebound a blip or a trend? That’s a question rightsholders and music catalog-aggregating investors would like answered, too. A number of factors are in play, Page says.
The first is a post-pandemic correction, he suggests—in particular, the appetite for public performance. “[L]ive music today is far bigger than it was pre-pandemic, albeit lopsided in favour of stadiums and festivals,” he writes. Second, inflation is baked into blanket licenses so performing rights organizations tend to trumpet record collections every year. “In a world of high inflation, we can expect even bigger record collections,” he predicts.
Finally, he quotes Gadi Oron, director general of CISAC, who points to a combination of “improvements in identifying content, licensing better and increasing rates” driving digital growth. Page writes that Oron also notes that performances collections have not yet returned to the level of pre-Covid days.
Page reports that respected consultancy MIDIA came up with an even higher global value for 2022. “[I]f MIDIA’s methodology is right, the global value of music copyright is closer to $45bn than $40bn. And if copyright grew by $5bn this year, we could be talking about a $50bn business a lot sooner than you think,” he writes.
If that comes to pass, Page continues, then copyright’s global value will have doubled since he began his annual reports in 2014. “And that would bookend an incredible decade‑long streaming-led success story that would be the envy of every other media vertical.”
