China’s only collecting society for musical works, the Music Copyright Society of China, paid songwriter royalties in four wire transfers during 2025 and deducted an administration fee that moved between 13.8 percent and 19.7 percent depending on the run.
That range is published run by run on the society’s own distribution notices, and almost nobody outside the market quotes it.
One society for songs, a different one for recordings
A collective management organisation, or CMO, licenses rights on behalf of many owners and splits the money back out.
MCSC was established on 17 December 1992 under the supervision of the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC), the state body that approves CMOs. Its own English profile lists four licence categories it administers: mechanical, performing, broadcasting and new media rights.
Recordings are not on that list. Sound recording rights sit with the China Audio-Video Copyright Association (CAVCA), per the European Commission’s China IP SME Helpdesk briefing of 29 April 2025.
So a release in China travels two separate rails, which is why the market reads as a stack of separate markets rather than one. Your master reaches Tencent Music, NetEase Cloud Music, KuGou and Kuwo through a distributor. Your composition reaches MCSC only through your own society.
MCSC’s homepage counters put it at 16,132 members, more than 24 million works under management, more than 80 reciprocal agreements with overseas societies, and annual licensing income of RMB 604 million.
Fourteen distributions, four payment dates
MCSC schedules 14 distributions a year, then groups them into four wire dates. The published 2025 cycle:
- 15 April 2025: about RMB 74.51 million pre-tax, admin fee about 19.5 percent
- 18 July 2025: about RMB 226 million, about 19.4 percent
- 14 October 2025: about RMB 130 million, about 19.2 percent
- 11 December 2025: about RMB 41.19 million, about 13.8 percent
2026 has kept the shape: about RMB 151 million in April at roughly 17.8 percent, then about RMB 230 million in July at roughly 19.7 percent.
The July wire is around three times the April wire, so Chinese income belongs in a quarterly forecast, not a monthly one. The deduction is not a flat rate either, so a China line built on one assumed commission will be wrong in both directions across a year. Compare Taipei, where internet streaming is still licensed at 2012 rates.
Retroactive money only lands on a registration
MCSC signed licensing agreements with NetEase Cloud Music in September 2025 and with Tencent Music in November 2025, both covering usage from before the signing date. Cathy Li reported for Asia IP Law on 10 February 2026 that the retroactive clauses are aimed at historic settlement gaps. MCSC’s own newsroom dates the Tencent signing to a 29 November 2025 event in Beijing.
The gap is large relative to the society collecting it. Tencent Music’s membership services revenue alone was RMB 4.79 billion in the second quarter of 2026, as Murray Stassen reported for Music Business Worldwide on 11 August 2026. MCSC’s entire annual licensing income is RMB 604 million.
Retroactive coverage does not come looking for you. MCSC publishes claim lists of works whose ownership data was too incomplete to distribute: one covering 2022 online, broadcast and karaoke fees, another for 2023 karaoke, and a standing statutory-licence list for recordings where the user never supplied writer details. Those fees stay at the society until a rights holder claims them off a spreadsheet.
What to check before the next run
- Confirm your home society holds a reciprocal agreement with MCSC. More than 80 do; Korea’s route runs through KOMCA.
- Register every composition with writer splits and publisher chain complete. A missing field, not a missing stream, is what parks money in a claim list.
- Search MCSC’s works database for your titles before assuming a publisher registered them.
- Treat the recording side separately. Delivery to Chinese platforms covers the master, not the song.
For an indie label that is the China problem in one line. Getting the recording onto the Chinese platforms most distributors skip is a delivery job. Getting the song paid is a registration job, and it runs on a calendar of four wires a year with a cut that changes every time.
