Israel’s songwriter society ACUM collected NIS 41.49 million (about $13.5 million) in digital royalties in 2024, and taking those rights back is harder than it looks.
CMO means collective management organisation: the body that licenses the song, not the recording your distributor delivers. ACUM has 14,827 members, including deceased ones, per its 2024 annual summary, published October 2025.
Where ACUM’s money comes from
Total 2024 collections were NIS 199.76 million, or about $65.2 million at the Bank of Israel representative rate of 3.063 on 30 September 2026. The figures are unaudited.
- Broadcast: NIS 77.2 million (38.7%)
- Public performance: NIS 67.5 million (33.8%)
- Digital: NIS 41.5 million (20.8%), down from NIS 53.4 million in 2023
- Other (foreign, advertising, film, mechanicals): NIS 13.5 million (6.7%)
ACUM says the digital drop is not a decline: 2023 was exceptional because of new deals with international platforms. Foreign income hit a record NIS 9.58 million, up 22%, which ACUM attributes partly to Mint Digital Services, the SUISA-SESAC joint venture handling its digital licensing abroad since a deal announced on 15 December 2020.
Of NIS 168.65 million distributed in 2024, digital was NIS 28.9 million (17.1%).
You can opt out, but only in four bundles
ACUM operates under conditions set by Israel’s Competition Commissioner, in a version dated 15 January 2023 that repeats the terms of a 2016 decision. Members may exclude rights from ACUM at any time. A partial exclusion must use one of four categories, whole:
- Audiovisual broadcast, including sync and on-demand video over TV, internet or mobile
- Audio broadcast, including on-demand audio over radio, internet or mobile
- Print reproduction
- Recording (mechanical) rights not made for broadcast
On those definitions, streaming audio is bundled with radio, and streaming video with television. You cannot move one without the other.
Every co-writer has to agree
An exclusion only works if every ACUM member with rights in the work agrees and files the same notice. One holdout keeps the song inside ACUM.
Timing
The notice takes effect within 30 days of receipt, and no sooner than 15 days after ACUM publishes it online. Licences ACUM already granted run to 31 December, or their earlier expiry, if you file by 30 November.
Miss that date and they run to 31 December of the following year. Either way, you keep your share of fees collected under them.
The quieter option: a direct licence
Members can also license a user directly while ACUM holds the rights. The licence must be non-exclusive, granted before the use, and notified to ACUM in writing. It suits a one-off sync or brand deal, not a catalogue move.
Defaults to check before you register
ACUM’s member FAQ and its split key, last updated 21 June 2026, set these:
- Joining: open to Israeli citizens and permanent residents with at least one work released in the past three years. Approval takes up to two months.
- Tax: without an updated withholding certificate, ACUM deducts the maximum 46%.
- Splits: 50/50 lyricist and composer. With an original arranger, 42.5% composer, 45% lyricist, 12.5% arranger.
- Covers: since 1 April 2026, a cover arranger gets 6.25% only with the composer’s written approval. Without it, zero.
- AI: lyrics or melody written entirely by AI must be declared. That share is registered as “AI” and ACUM collects nothing for it. The 2024 summary reports the first seven such declarations.
- Foreign money: reaches ACUM roughly a year late.
What to do with your catalogue
If most of your audience is abroad, ACUM lets you limit membership to Israel and join a foreign society for other territories. Line the new society up first: until it accepts you, those rights are unprotected.
If you stay, register every work before release and report every Latin-script spelling of your name. ACUM matches DSP usage reports automatically, then by hand, and foreign societies match against international databases.
Performers and session musicians collect separately, through Eshkolot and EILAM. The master is your distributor’s job, and clean writer credits on that delivery make the publishing easier to match.
Japan runs a comparable category split between JASRAC and NexTone. Closer by, see the UAE’s first licence rate card and Anghami’s Lebanon payout problem.
