{"id":254219,"date":"2026-03-30T21:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T20:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=254219"},"modified":"2026-03-31T09:02:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:02:41","slug":"germanys-gema-distributed-1-3b-to-rightsholders-in-2025-up-1-4-yoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/germanys-gema-distributed-1-3b-to-rightsholders-in-2025-up-1-4-yoy\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany’s GEMA paid out $1.3B to rightsholders in 2025, up 1.4% YoY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Germany-based collection society GEMA paid out EUR \u20ac1.15 billion (USD $1.30 billion) to rightsholders in 2025, up 1.4% YoY<\/strong><\/span>, according to the organization’s newly released annual report.<\/p>\n

The organization\u2019s total revenues for the year increased by 0.4% YoY<\/span><\/strong> to \u20ac1.34 billion ($1.51 billion<\/strong> at the average annual exchange rate published by the IRS).<\/p>\n

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GEMA’s cost ratio improved to 14.1%<\/strong>, down from 14.9%<\/strong> in 2024.<\/p>\n

In Germany, GEMA represents the copyright interests of more than 100,000<\/strong> members (composers, lyricists, and music publishers), as well as over 2 million<\/strong> owners of intellectual property rights worldwide.<\/p>\n

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GEMA reported a 5.6% YoY<\/strong><\/span> increase in live and background music revenues to \u20ac530 million ($598m<\/strong>), driven by smaller and regional events rather than major concerts.<\/p>\n

The society said it collected fees from roughly 85,000<\/strong> more small and medium-sized events than in 2024, thanks to improved processing workflows \u2014 helping to offset a decline in stadium shows and the absence of the one-off boost provided by the 2024 European Football Championship, hosted by Germany.<\/p>\n

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Collections from online music rose 5.7% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to \u20ac328 million ($370m<\/strong>), boosted by new agreements with platforms including Spotify and Amazon Music. Radio\/TV collections fell 5.0% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to \u20ac293 million ($331m<\/strong>), down from \u20ac308 million.<\/p>\n

Reproduction rights revenue fell 42% YoY<\/strong> <\/span>to \u20ac26 million ($29m), driven by contractual restructuring in its collection mandate agreements and the continued decline in physical formats.<\/p>\n

International revenues rose 2.9% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to \u20ac90 million ($102m<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

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Within GEMA’s transparency report, published<\/a> alongside its annual report on Monday (March 30), the society classifies the development and use of AI-generated music as a “high risk” to its revenues. However, it also identifies its landmark court ruling against OpenAI as a “high opportunity” to generate additional income and establish a sustainable licensing market for AI use of creative works.<\/p>\n

GEMA sued OpenAI in November 2024<\/a> over the alleged unlicensed reproduction of song lyrics by ChatGPT, and won the ruling in November 2025<\/a>. The society has also taken legal action against AI music generator Suno<\/a> for alleged copyright infringement.<\/p>\n

Holzm\u00fcller said the OpenAI ruling showed GEMA is “building the foundations of a sustainable licensing market and ensuring that use of our members’ creative work is fairly remunerated, even in entirely new contexts.”<\/p>\n

Separately, GEMA has deployed AI-powered tools internally to speed up processing times and payouts as part of a broader cloud migration and digitisation programme completed during the year.<\/p>\n

MBW reported in September<\/a> that GEMA also plans to cut its commission on on-demand music distribution from 10% to 7% by 2027, a move expected to boost annual payouts by more than \u20ac6 million ($7m).<\/p>\n

“The music market is experiencing profound changes, and GEMA is actively shaping this transformation.”<\/p>\n

Dr Tobias Holzm\u00fcller, GEMA<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Commenting on the organization’s 2025 results, GEMA CEO Dr Tobias Holzm\u00fcller said: “The music market is experiencing profound changes, and GEMA is actively shaping this transformation. “We’re modernizing our structures, showing how reliable we are as a partner to our members, and steadily expanding our international network.<\/p>\n

“At the same time, we’re systematically championing our members’ rights \u2014 as demonstrated by the court ruling against OpenAI in November 2025, which represented our first success in the AI marketplace. It also shows how we’re building the foundations of a sustainable licensing market and ensuring that use of our members’ creative work is fairly remunerated, even in entirely new contexts.”<\/p>\n

“While our figures show a decline in sectors such as the advertising market and physical audio recordings, the positive trends in the live music and online business sectors more than offset this shortfall.”<\/p>\n

Lorenzo Colombini, GEMA<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

GEMA said it completed a cloud migration project during the year as part of what it called a “service-focused development strategy,” and introduced AI-powered tools to speed up processing times and payouts.<\/p>\n

“2025 was not an easy year for the economy as a whole. So it’s all the more gratifying that GEMA achieved such an excellent set of financial results yet again,” added Lorenzo Colombini, CFO of GEMA. “While our figures show a decline in sectors such as the advertising market and physical audio recordings, the positive trends in the live music and online business sectors more than offset this shortfall. What’s more, GEMA is steadily growing its international business, representing the rights of numerous creative rights-holders abroad \u2013 an area in which we see plenty of future potential for growth.<\/p>\n

“Our goals for 2026 remain clear: to preserve GEMA’s financial stability and so guarantee the best possible payouts for our members.”<\/p>\n

GEMA’s transparency report also noted that the society completed the sale of its digital distribution subsidiary Zebralution<\/a> to New York-based private equity firm Insight Holdings Group in December 2025, describing the divestment as part of its “strategic development.”<\/p>\n

The sale, which had no material impact on GEMA’s 2025 financials, came just over five years after the society acquired a majority stake in the Berlin-based company. Zebralution has since been folded into Insight-backed Bookwire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in Germany, the country’s recorded music market grew 2.3% YoY<\/strong><\/span> in 2025 according to figures published by the German Music Industry Association, BVMI<\/strong>, earlier this month. <\/strong>As MBW noted at the time<\/a>, that 2.3% figure only marginally outpaced Germany’s average inflation rate of 2.2%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The German collection society described the results as “excellent,” but total revenues grew less than 1%<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7380,"featured_media":198303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[132150,4838,193,124,131311],"class_list":["post-254219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-annual-report","tag-cmo","tag-gema","tag-de","tag-royalty-collection"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254219"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254313,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254219\/revisions\/254313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}