The global music industry that everyone declared dead in the streaming era is now worth $31.7 billion and growing for the eleventh year running. Catalogues are becoming financial instruments. AI licensing is rewriting deal documents. And Sir Paul McCartney just got banned from Reddit for posting a photo of himself. We will come back to that. Here is your Easter week signal.
$31.7 Billion. Eleven Years Straight. And There Is a Problem Nobody Is Talking About.
The IFPI’s Global Music Report, published this week, confirms that recorded music revenues hit an all-time high of $31.7 billion in 2025, up 6.4 per cent. Streaming now accounts for 52.4 per cent of all global revenue, with 837 million paid subscribers. Latin America grew 17.1 per cent. China overtook Germany to become the fourth-largest market globally. Vinyl posted its 19th consecutive year of growth.
But buried in the same report is the story that actually matters for rights holders: streaming fraud. Bad actors are artificially inflating play counts to redirect legitimate earnings away from catalogue owners. The industry is growing. Not all of that growth is landing where it should.
“Clean, verified rights data is your first line of defence. If your catalogue is properly documented and attributed, discrepancies are easier to detect and dispute. If it is not, you may not even know you are losing out.
Catalogues Are Becoming Financial Instruments. Do You Know What You Own?
Seeker Music this week closed a $267 million asset-backed securitisation covering 19,000 copyrights and master recordings. It joins a fast-growing list of catalogue-backed financing vehicles in 2026. Dealmaking around major catalogues is off to one of its fastest starts in years.
Catalogue is no longer simply a creative asset. It is collateral. Investors are treating music rights the way they treat bonds and the due diligence they bring to that conversation is forensic.
“Before any deal, any investment, any licensing conversation: you need to know exactly what you own, where it lives and who holds rights to what. That is not paperwork. That is your negotiating position.
AI Licensing Deals Are Multiplying. The Contracts Are Getting Complicated.
The IFPI report flags AI licensing as a central theme for the industry in 2026. Twelve major licensing deals were announced in the past year alone, with 20-plus additional partnerships under way. Deal documents are increasingly including AI-specific language: reserved rights clauses, territory-by-territory licensing terms and allocation frameworks that simply did not exist two years ago.
What is not being said openly: most independent labels and publishers are not yet positioned to enter these conversations properly. Not because they lack leverage. Because their rights data is not documented precisely enough to be licensed at that level of detail.
“You cannot negotiate what you have not catalogued. The opportunity is real. But only for those who know exactly what they own.
The B-Side: Sir Paul McCartney Was Banned From Reddit
A copyright bot flagged it as a violation. His own photo. Of his own concert. The most famous musician alive, unable to share a picture of himself performing his own songs.
We are not sure whether to laugh or add it to a presentation about why music rights data needs to be better managed. We will probably do both.
Happy Easter, everyone. The industry was declared dead. It came back. It is now worth $31.7 billion. Sir Paul still cannot post on Reddit. Some things remain unresolved.
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