Streaming music, films and TV shows is gradually becoming the dominant avenue for enjoying entertainment and culture. In 2024, global streaming revenues from recorded music soared to a record-breaking USD 20.4 billion – more than eight times the 2.6 billion reported in 2015.1 Streaming now accounts for over 69 percent of the total worldwide revenue from recorded music.2 The growth of video streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video is impressive. Although traditional television broadcasting remains the primary revenue source for audiovisual works in major national markets,3 the video streaming sector is projected to generate as much as USD 119.09 billion in 2025.4 This revenue is further expected to grow at an annual rate of 6.66 per cent from 2025 to 2030, reaching USD 164.41 billion by the end of the decade.5

This global shift is mirrored in Europe, where local producers report increased engagement with streaming platforms and anticipate that streaming will become an even more significant revenue stream in the coming years.6 In contrast, revenues from traditional television and cinema are expected to decline.7 Not only are on-demand subscription services increasingly gaining in popularity and revenues, but platforms for user-generated content (UGC), such as YouTube and Facebook, are engaging billions of users daily.8 YouTube is the second-largest streaming platform with a 22 per cent market share, just after Netflix with its 31 per cent share.9 In 2024, YouTube generated USD 36.1 billion in revenue, marking a 14.6 per cent increase from the previous year.10

While streaming revenue is increasing and access to copyright content may be vigorously controlled by rights holders, it is often not authors and performers (jointly referred to as ‘creators’) who benefit from growing digital content earnings and reinforced access controls.11 As many commentators and policymakers have observed, copyright lobbying and policymaking may bring industry interests into focus – in particular the relationship between the creative industry and content distributors – and overlook the position of individual creators.12

This issue has attracted global attention. Since late 2019, the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) has highlighted the need to ensure fair remuneration for creators whose works are exploited on digital platforms,13 as well as the need to address the disparity – often referred to as the ‘value gap’ – between platform earnings and payments to creators.14 At its forty-third session in March 2023, the SCCR examined economic and legal issues surrounding music streaming, including revenue distribution, royalty transparency and the role of platforms in securing fair pay for creators. During the same session, the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (GRULAC) called for an analysis of digital copyright to ensure fair remuneration for creators, emphasizing streaming as a key concern in this context.15

In its Proposal for Analysis of Copyright Related to the Digital Environment, GRULAC stressed the need for flexible legal tools – such as collective management systems or other mechanisms adapted to national contexts – to secure creators’ rights to remuneration.16 While this proposal did not receive immediate consensus, WIPO Member States agreed to continue the discussion. At the SCCR’s forty-fifth session in April 2024, GRULAC proposed follow-up actions, reaffirming the importance of fair remuneration for creators in the digital age.17 Shortly after, in November 2024, the Delegation of Côte d’Ivoire submitted a proposal for a focused study on audiovisual authors’ rights, emphasizing equitable remuneration practices.18

Similar initiatives are emerging at the national level. In February 2024, South Africa passed a Copyright Amendment Bill introducing measures that aim at ensuring fair remuneration for authors and performers.19 The Bill grants authors of literary and musical works, as well as performers of audiovisual works and sound recordings, a right to receive ‘a fair share of the royalty’ from the exploitation of their works.20 However, this right – except in the case of actors – is subject to contractual override, such as through a lump sum payment.21 Actors, by contrast, benefit from a non-waivable entitlement to royalties, offering them comparatively stronger protection. Another noteworthy provision limits the duration of copyright assignments for literary and musical works to a maximum of 25 years, after which rights automatically revert to the author.22

The issue of fair remuneration also features prominently on the EU agenda. In November 2023, a study commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs, at the request of the JURI Committee, was published, analysing buy-out contracts imposed by platforms in the cultural and creative sectors under EU law and highlighting the need for legal solutions to improve creators’ remuneration.23 Similarly, in December 2023, the Council of Europe’s Audiovisual Observatory published a report on Fair Remuneration for Audiovisual Authors and Performers in Licensing Agreements, emphasizing the need to address creators’ fair remuneration in the context of the rise of digital platforms, streaming services and new exploitation models.24

Further advancing the discussion, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology published a comprehensive study in March 2025. Titled Study on Contractual Practices Affecting the Transfer of Copyright and Related Rights, it explores the use of full-transfer contracts (such as buy-outs) across creative sectors – including audiovisual, music, visual arts, video games and literature – and examines their impact on creators’ remuneration and producers’ investment capacities.25

On the legislative front, the EU has introduced several harmonized mechanisms in the 2019 Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSMD)26 to ensure fair remuneration for creators. Articles 18 to 23 CDSMD include rules governing licensing agreements between creators and exploiters, such as ex post contract adjustments, favouring royalties over lump sums, regulating jurisdictional clauses and other elements of mandatory copyright contract law. Article 17 CDSMD adds a specific liability regime for UGC platforms to encourage rights clearance initiatives. At Member State level, mandatory collective licensing can also play a key role, particularly in combination with residual remuneration rights (retained by creators after transferring exploitation rights) and remunerated copyright exceptions.

Source: https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpaf071/8313373