Peru’s songwriter society, APDAYC, collected S/ 124.2 million in 2024, and money for songs it cannot identify is shared among other rights holders after three years. Its audited accounts show 29.5 percent of collections went on administration, member benefits and assets.
APDAYC means Asociación Peruana de Autores y Compositores. It is a CMO, or collective management organisation: it licenses radio, TV, venues, concerts and digital services for songwriters and publishers, then pays them by usage. It is the songwriter side of Peru’s record cumbia market.
Where 2024’s money went
The 2024 financial statements, audited by Hugo Salas Nolazco & Asociados, report spending against the ceilings in Peru’s copyright law. A Congress briefing lists them as 30 percent for administration, 10 percent for social and cultural benefits and 3 percent for assets.
- Gross collections: S/ 124.15 million, up 19.6 percent from S/ 103.81 million in 2023.
- Administration: 21.67 percent.
- Social and cultural spending on members: 5.91 percent.
- Fixed assets: 1.89 percent.
- Remaining after those deductions: S/ 87.55 million.
The balance sheet books S/ 64.09 million as royalties still to be distributed, a long-term liability up 34 percent in a year. That equals nearly three-quarters of what remained after 2024’s deductions, and the published pages do not separate payment timing from unmatched money.
APDAYC says 2025 collections passed US$36 million, according to El Peruano (24 February 2026). That figure is unaudited.
The three-year clock on unidentified songs
The statute approved on 10 February 2026 sets the rule in Articles 100 and 101, citing Articles 161 and 162 of Legislative Decree 822, Peru’s copyright law:
- Works picked up in a distribution but not properly documented go on a list of “obras no identificadas”.
- Owners can claim them for three years from 1 January after that distribution. A song caught in a 2025 distribution stays claimable until 31 December 2028.
- After that, the money goes to the rights holders paid in that distribution, in proportion to what each received.
- Royalties already calculated for a member but never collected pass to the society after five years.
The proportional rule decides who gains. Unclaimed money follows the best-documented catalogues, so each cycle’s biggest earners take the biggest share. Denmark’s Koda applies a similar deadline to unmatched streaming money.
Earnings also decide your vote
APDAYC regrades members every year by what it paid them the year before, measured in UIT, Peru’s tax reference unit. The UIT is S/ 5,500 in 2026.
- New administered authors get a voice at assemblies but no vote.
- From 1/5 UIT (about S/ 1,100): one vote.
- From 1/2 UIT (S/ 2,750): two votes.
- From 1 UIT (S/ 5,500): four weighted votes.
- From 3 UIT (S/ 16,500): six votes, plus one for every 5 UIT earned, up to ten extra.
A song that goes unmatched costs its writer money now and standing the following year.
Three societies, one track
UNIMPRO collects for record producers and SONIEM for performers, and with APDAYC they form the Cámara Peruana de la Música, Andina reported in May 2022. Fausto Vienrich, copyright director at Indecopi, the state agency that supervises the societies, said at the time that a single collection window would cut collection costs significantly. APDAYC still publishes its own 2026 tariff.
What to do before your next release
- Register every work with all co-writers and splits before it goes out. APDAYC’s membership contract hands it administration of 100 percent of your performance, streaming and mechanical rights, while each sync licence still needs your approval.
- Ask for the unidentified-works list after each distribution and claim within the three years.
- Collect what you are paid. Uncollected payments pass to the society after five years.
- Do not pull your own songs from the register to spare a venue the fee. The statute treats that as a disciplinary fault for singer-songwriters.
- Keep titles and writer names identical across APDAYC and your release metadata.
This is where distribution comes in. InterSpace Distribution’s DDEX-native delivery carries the composer credits you enter, so store usage reports name the same writers your society registered. DDEX means Digital Data Exchange, the metadata standard streaming services ingest. For Peru’s other legal clock, see Peru’s three-day takedown rule.
