Caribbean music and art royalties dipped 27 per cent to €3.3 million (J$400 million) in 2008 according to data released last month by the International Confederation of Societies Of Authors and Composers (Cisac) in its annual Global Economic Survey.

It meant that musicians and artistes received less money from oversees territories for use of their intellectual property.

“Considering the economic crisis and the ongoing turmoil in the record industry, it isn’t surprising that collections of authors’ rights royalties by Cisac’s members were down,” stated the 56-page report, which represents 222 collecting societies in 118 countries.

Cisac didn’t include 2009 statistics but revealed that it was the first decline in (at least) three years for the Caribbean which includes Cuba, Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, St Lucia, Dominica Republic and Jamaica.

Caribbean royalties at €3.3 million in 2008 represented €3.29 million for music and €5,000 for visual arts. The royalties earned in 2007 were €4.5 million (J$545 million) of which visual arts earned €862,000 and music earned €3.6 million); and in 2006 royalties earned were €4.3 million (J$521 million) of which audio-visual earned €936,000 and music earned €3.4 million) .

Cisac stated that region of Latin-America and the Caribbean recorded growth, however, the Caribbean and Central America declined despite currency fluctuations.

“In spite of an unfavourable exchange rate in relation to the Euro, South America saw a healthy rise in its collections (up five per cent), underscoring the vibrancy of the societies in this region. It enabled the Latin America-

Caribbean region as a whole to record growth even though Central America’s results were down and the Caribbean plunged 32 per cent,” stated the report,

Global royalties, however, declined 1.5 per cent in 2008 to €7 billion (J$848 billion) which was the first decline in four years. It also added that royalties at constant currency actually increased “almost one per cent”.

“Authors’ societies continued to struggle against a challenging environment and buoyed sinking revenues with improved territorial coverage and expanded licensing. In fact, when figures are adjusted to account for the increasing strength of the Euro (on which our figures are consolidated), collections grew by almost one per cent,” stated the report.

Global collecting societies took aggressive efforts to cut costs — notably through technological solutions and the use of Cisac’s international standards. These measures, it stated, resulted “in more money distributed to rights owners despite formidable economic challenges”.

Furthermore, lower royalty collections were not universal, North American societies were particularly affected in 2008, echoing the shape of the economic crisis.

“Because North America is the second most important market for authors’ rights, losses here make up 70 per cent of the total decrease in collections. Yet in developing regions such as Africa, Asia and Latin America, collections rose as authors’ societies improved efficiencies and reached more users. Although these regions represent a smaller percentage of total collections, their health is crucial to the global network of authors’ societies,” stated the report.

The statistics were compiled from data supplied to Cisac by its 222-member societies. The calculations are based on the Gross National Collections of each of the Cisac societies. These correspond to the royalties collected for the use of the global repertoire in their respective territories.