Brazil has begun paying some shop music royalties from reported plays rather than a sample of what might have played. That changes the practical question for an overseas catalogue owner. It is no longer enough to ask whether a recording reached a streaming service in Brazil. The owner also needs to know whether a shop’s usage report can be matched to the composition and recording rights it controls, and which royalty pool that report enters. In a June 2026 notice, Brazil’s Central Office for Collection and Distribution (ECAD) said direct distribution began in January for part of its background music category. The change is partial, but the first reported distribution is already large enough to make the distinction operational rather than theoretical.
The pool follows the shop, then the reported music
ECAD’s distribution regulation, available in its July 2026 file, defines the background music pool around receipts from shopping centres, department stores, chain shops and other premises using recorded music to sound their spaces. It covers both authors’ rights in compositions and neighbouring rights in recordings. That scope matters to a label in Lagos or Accra: a composition registration and a delivered master are different records, and a shop play can engage interests on both sides.
ECAD’s June 2026 notice says the direct portion uses music usage reports supplied by the businesses or their background music companies. It also says businesses are grouped by the average value of their establishments, with a pool built for each group and all music reported by that group considered for distribution. That is a more precise description than a flat payment for each play. A play count helps identify use within a group; it does not by itself tell a rightsholder the cash value of one play. The size of the relevant pool, the other reported music and the rights attached to a track all matter to what can ultimately be paid.
The same ECAD notice of June 2026 says the indirect portion continues to use a statistically certified sample of 25,000 plays. ECAD intends to retire sampling progressively as direct reporting becomes sufficiently representative. For now, a claim that Brazil has switched all shop music to exact usage would be wrong. A catalogue owner should ask whether a particular statement reflects the directly reported pool or the sampled pool before trying to reconcile it against a playlist or store report.
What the first distribution proves, and what it does not
ECAD said in its June 2026 notice that the first direct distribution, made in January 2026, considered about 90 million reported plays across more than 3,500 Cacau Show and Caedu Moda shops. It said the payment reached more than 4,600 rightsholders, 60 per cent of them Brazilian. These are ECAD’s figures for that first direct exercise, not a count of all shop music played in Brazil and not a rate card. ECAD did not state in that notice the amount paid to each work, the money assigned to the direct pool or the share of the whole background music category already using reports. Those omissions limit any attempt to turn the headline play total into a payout forecast.
The identity of the participating chains is useful for a different reason. Their reports describe music in specified commercial premises. A digital service provider (DSP) delivery confirmation describes the availability of a recording in a digital catalogue. Neither document substitutes for the other. If a shop uses a track, the possible public performance payment has to be followed through the shop music process and the relevant rights records. Counting a streaming delivery as evidence of a shop performance would mix two kinds of activity.
Brazil’s recorded music data reinforces the accounting distinction. Pro-Música Brasil’s report for 2024, published in 2025, places public performance neighbouring rights for performers, musicians and recording producers in a separate revenue category from on-demand streaming. Its categories are market totals, not an ECAD shop statement, but they corroborate the need to keep the revenue lines apart. A distributor reviewing Brazilian income should be able to point to a master income line and a public performance line without treating either as an explanation of the other.
The quiet match on the recording side
The current ECAD distribution regulation lists the author or composer and publisher on the authors’ side, and the performer, recording producer and performing musician on the neighbouring rights side. That list gives a practical audit a starting point. For each track expected to circulate in Brazilian premises, identify the musical work, the sound recording, the parties who control each, and the society or representative through which each expects to receive public performance money. A distributor that controls delivery does not necessarily control all those claims.
Matching is also a documentation problem. In its member guidance on distribution, the Brazilian Union of Composers (UBC) says credits can be held when a work or recording is unidentified, including where a title is absent, spelled differently or lacks supporting information such as performer details. UBC advises members to register alternate titles and check for held credits. This is evidence of a known failure point, not evidence that any specific foreign track has lost money. For a catalogue with Portuguese, English and local title variants, the useful response is to make those variants traceable to the same work and recording before a statement has to be disputed.
ECAD’s June 2026 notice says the shop music category remains on a quarterly distribution cycle in January, April, July and October. A delayed appearance on a statement should therefore be investigated against that cycle and the relevant reporting period, rather than treated immediately as proof that no shop played the music. UBC’s member guidance also describes retained credits as a possible result of incomplete identification. The working question is specific: was a use reported, did the work or recording match, and is there a credit that can still be resolved?
Do not let an old guide settle a new claim
There is a documentation trap here. UBC’s online member guide still describes background music distribution through a sample of 50,000 plays. ECAD’s dated June 2026 notice instead describes a new direct component alongside a continuing indirect sample of 25,000 plays. Those statements cannot both serve as a complete description of the current process. The ECAD notice is the source for what changed in 2026; the UBC guide remains useful for its explanation of held credits and catalogue identification, but its sample-only description should not be used to infer how the new direct component works.
This is why a statement review needs an explicit source date. A label may have a familiar account of how Brazilian public performance income works, yet the method used to assign shop music has changed for some users. If the claim concerns a chain with direct usage reports, ask the representing society to identify the distribution category and the matched repertoire. If it concerns the indirect remainder, ask how the relevant sample enters that quarter’s distribution. These are requests for an explanation of an actual statement, not a promise that a reported play guarantees payment.
A small audit that can produce an answer
Start with a few recordings that have a plausible route into commercial playlists. Put the composition title, alternate titles, writers, publisher or administrator, recording title, recording producer and performer credits in one reviewable file. Add the local society or representation contact for each side of the rights. Check the registration status with that representative, then compare any Brazilian statement with the ECAD category and quarter it names. Keep the original shop usage evidence if a commercial partner can supply it, but do not assume a distributor’s store acceptance report is that evidence.
Where there is a mismatch, describe it precisely to the society: which composition or recording, which reported use, which quarter and which rightsholder appears missing. UBC’s member guidance makes clear that title variations and incomplete performer information can stop a credit from being identified. ECAD’s new direct route makes a reported play potentially more specific evidence for the rightsholder to examine, while the remaining sampled route still requires care about what an absent line means.
The opportunity is narrow but real. ECAD has made shop reports part of the payment machinery, and its first disclosed distribution involved a substantial body of reported use. For an African catalogue owner entering Brazil, the useful move is to keep composition and recording claims legible and to reconcile the correct public performance pool. The next question for ECAD is how much of the category moves from sampling to direct reports over time. Until it publishes that proportion and the money attached to each route, no one should turn the number of reported shop plays into an invented Brazilian per-play price.
