Royalty income for songwriters sits inside a much larger music-rights economy. In 2024, global music-repertoire collections reached €12.59 billion, while a UK study estimated about £0.002 per stream for music-publishing rights holders in 2019. Those figures describe different layers of the system: collective collections are not individual take-home pay, and per-stream estimates depend on contracts, administration, and how revenue is allocated.
Contents
- Global royalty collections
- Digital and regional patterns
- How streaming revenue was divided in the UK
- UK songwriter and composer earnings over time
- What one million streams represented
- Income distribution and collaboration
Global royalty collections
The CISAC Global Collections Report 2025 measured collective creator royalty collections across the music repertoire in 2024. Music accounted for 90% of CISAC’s €13.97 billion total creator royalty collections. The music-repertoire total was €12.59 billion, an increase of 7.2% from the previous year. These are collections for the repertoire, not the net income of an individual songwriter; they include composers, lyricists, and other music-rights creators.
The 2024 breakdown shows how many royalty channels contribute to the overall pool:
- Digital music collections were €5.14 billion, up 11.2% year over year.
- Live and background music collections were €3.60 billion, up 9.6% year over year.
- Broadcast collections were €3.94 billion, up 0.8% year over year.
Across the longer period from 2015 to 2024, CISAC’s total creator royalty collections rose 65.2%. Digital collections from audio streaming and video-on-demand subscriptions increased sevenfold over the same period. The growth of digital does not mean every songwriter experienced the same increase: repertoire-level growth is distributed through rights ownership, territories, intermediaries, co-writing shares, and contracts.
The preceding CISAC Global Collections Report 2024 recorded global music royalties of €11.75 billion in 2023, up 7.6% from 2022. Digital royalties for the music repertoire rose 9.6% that year. Live and public-performance collections reached €3.28 billion, 22% above 2022 and 12.6% above 2019. Traditional television and radio creator royalties moved in the opposite direction, falling 4% to €3.89 billion.
Digital and regional patterns
Digital collections represented 39.8% of CISAC music-repertoire income in 2024. The share varies substantially by market, so a global percentage should not be treated as a universal songwriter royalty rate.
| Market or region | Reported statistic | Period |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Digital was 27.1% of creator collections | 2024 |
| France | Digital was 13.9% of creator collections | 2024 |
| United Kingdom | Digital was 11.4% of creator collections | 2024 |
| Mali | Digital was 89.9% of creator collections | 2024 |
| Vietnam | Digital was 89.6% of creator collections | 2024 |
| India | Digital was 82.7% of creator collections | 2024 |
The smaller-market figures also show how quickly the composition of collections can change. Vietnam’s digital creator collections grew 1,732.5% between 2015 and 2024. India’s grew 67,630.9% over the same period. Those are growth rates for digital creator collections, not per-songwriter income forecasts.
In 2023, Europe held 54.7% of global creator royalty collections. West European collections were €6.7 billion, up 7.9% year over year. Canada and the United States together recorded €3.2 billion, up 7.8%. Asia-Pacific collections were €1.9 billion, down 0.8% at reported exchange rates, while Africa recorded €81 million, up 3.2%. Latin American and Caribbean creator royalties grew 29.2%, including a 57.9% rebound in live concerts and public performance.
How streaming revenue was divided in the UK
The UK government’s Music Creators’ Earnings, the Digital Era, and On-Demand Streaming Revenues study modeled the distribution of post-VAT on-demand streaming revenue for 2017–2019. It estimated that recording rights holders received about 52%, music-publishing rights holders about 15%, and digital service providers about 33% in 2018–2019 after the modeled rights-holder shares.
The publishing-rights share rose from 8% of UK on-demand streaming revenue in 2008 to 15% in 2019. In the study’s 2019 modeled mix, publishing rights represented 22.4% of the combined publishing-and-recording rights split, compared with 77.6% for recording rights. A separate 2019 collecting-society comparison favored publishing rights 63% to 37% over recording rights for public-performance revenue.
Looking at reported music-publishing-rights-holder revenue in the UK in 2019, on-demand streaming represented 30%, broadcasting 30%, and public performance 28%. In the study’s narrower mix of physical sales, downloads, and streaming, on-demand streaming represented 84% of music-publishing-rights-holder revenue. These percentages use different scopes, so they should be read as separate measurements rather than added together.
UK songwriter and composer earnings over time
The same UK executive summary modeled music-publishing earnings for composers and lyricists at £265 million in 2008, equivalent to £356 million in 2019 prices. The modeled figure reached £395 million in 2019. Against the inflation-adjusted 2008 figure, that was an 11% increase.
The study also separated a physical-sales, downloading, and streaming measure. UK composers and lyricists received a modeled £150 million from those sources in 2019. That was 20% below the inflation-adjusted £187 million received from physical sales in 2000. UK music publishers’ modeled revenue from the same physical-sales, downloading, and streaming category was about £50 million in 2019, down 17% from the inflation-adjusted 2000 figure.
For a wider publishing-rights measure, the report modeled £164 million from physical sales in 2000, equal to 14% of the total. The comparable basket of physical sales, downloading, streaming, sync, public performance, and broadcast was £403 million in 2012, equal to 33% of the total. In 2019, publishing-rights revenue from that wider basket was about 30% of the reported rights-holder total.
These figures are modeled UK royalty allocations and publishing earnings, not a guaranteed salary for a songwriter. They also cover different source categories and years, which is why the £395 million total for composers and lyricists should not be directly substituted for the narrower £150 million measure.
What one million streams represented
The UK study estimated average total streaming revenue at £0.011 per stream in 2019. Its estimate for music-publishing rights holders was about £0.002 per stream. At that reported rate, the study described about £2,000 per million streams before songwriter and publisher contract splits.
The report also presented a 2020-based model for a typical songwriter. Before a later 5% PRS/ICE administration-fee correction, the estimate was £1,238 from one million streams. After the correction, the estimate was £1,176 per million streams. The study’s corrected annualized estimate for a songwriter sustaining one million streams per nominal month was £15,288 in that 2020 model.
Those estimates are not current platform-wide prices or promises of 2026 income. They are explicitly tied to the study’s assumptions and measurement periods. The amount reaching an individual can vary with writer shares, publisher agreements, collection arrangements, territory, repertoire classification, and administration deductions.
The study’s CD-equivalent example used one million streams as equivalent to 1,000 album sales. At an £8 wholesale price and an 8.5% mechanical-rights rate, 1,000 album sales generated £680 in gross publisher revenue in the example. After the assumed 75% songwriter share, the example paid songwriters £510, compared with £865 for one million streams. Both amounts are outputs of the study’s 2020 example, not universal rates.
Income distribution and collaboration
The UK creator survey reported a broad spread of music income in 2019. Thirty-seven percent of musicians reported music earnings of £5,000 or less, 47% reported below £10,000, and 62% reported £20,000 or less. The survey’s median reported music income was £13,057 for women and £20,160 for men.
Income also differed by release structure. Median 2019 music income was £51,816 for UK musicians signed to major labels, £20,250 for musicians signed to independent labels, and £12,944 for self-releasing artists. Among UK musicians earning music income before 2015, 40% said their income had increased by 2019, 32% said it had decreased, and 28% said it was unchanged.
The collaboration results came from 482 UK songwriting and composing respondents. Seventy percent usually worked alone, 17% usually worked with another writer, and 10% usually worked with a group of writers. On who they wrote for, 48% wrote mostly for themselves, 18% mostly for others, and 33% for a mixture of themselves and others.
The survey fieldwork was reported in 2021, while the earnings reference period was 2019. Its findings describe respondents, not every songwriter. They nevertheless put the royalty estimates in context: a headline per-stream figure does not show how frequently a writer releases, how many co-writers share a work, whether the writer controls publishing, or how much of the reported income comes from other music activity.
For songwriter income analysis, the clearest distinction is therefore between three measurements: global repertoire collections, modeled rights-holder allocations, and survey-reported individual music income. CISAC’s 2024 €12.59 billion describes the first; the UK study’s £1,176 per million streams describes a specific model; and the survey medians describe reported respondent earnings in 2019. Keeping those categories separate makes the statistics useful without turning collective royalty totals into promises about personal take-home pay.