ECAD, Brazil’s central performing-rights office, licenses a ticketed concert at 10 percent of gross receipts for live music, halves that to 5 percent for promoters who file the setlist and paperwork, and pays songwriters song by song from that list.
A set ECAD never receives is paid out in December to songs other shows documented. Filing the setlist within five years can still claw it back.
What a concert owes
ECAD means Escritório Central de Arrecadação e Distribuição, the office that collects public performance royalties for Brazil’s music associations. Its collection regulation, revised 10 August 2026, sets the bill:
- Gross receipts include tickets, sponsorship and public subsidies (Article 11).
- Live music pays 10 percent, recorded music 15. The gap is the recording share, which live-only shows do not owe (Article 22).
- Free open-air shows pay on the music cost: performer fees, audio, video, lighting and stage (Article 12).
- Article 24 halves the rate if the promoter has no debts, files the repertoire and documents, and admits ECAD inspectors. Festivals licensed at 30,000 UDAs or more, a unit of value the associations adjust yearly, do not qualify.
Of collections, 85 percent reaches rightsholders, 6 percent the associations and 9 percent ECAD, per ECAD’s FAQ.
How the setlist splits it
Under Article 23 of the distribution regulation, revised 10 December 2025, the Show rubric, ECAD’s term for a payout pool, pays authors and publishers only:
- Each event’s money is divided by the number of songs performed, regardless of length.
- On one stage, the opener gets 20 percent and the headliner 80. Across several stages, the main stage gets 80, the secondary 15 and the rest 5.
- With equal billing, money splits equally per performer, then per song.
- Each performer is paid separately, so a missing opener setlist cannot stall the headliner.
- Songs are added within 60 days of the show clearing collections or the setlist arriving, extendable by 60. Shows pay monthly.
- With recorded music, the recording share moves into other ECAD pools, mainly radio, not to the tracks played.
Worked example: R$200,000 at the door
At 5 percent, the promoter pays R$10,000. After the 15 percent administration share, R$8,500 is distributable.
- Headliner, 20 songs: R$6,800, or R$340 per song.
- Opener, 8 songs: R$1,700, or R$212.50 per song.
When no setlist arrives
Lei 9.610, Article 68, Brazil’s copyright law, obliges the user to hand over a complete list of works immediately after the performance. When none arrives, ECAD may try the artist’s office, approved sources, the internet and its associations.
A performer still without a setlist goes into Article 39’s Extra Show distribution:
- It pays once a year, in December, and absorbs every show that collected R$500 or less unless its setlist arrived on time. At 5 percent, that is any gross up to R$10,000.
- It is split across songs documented at that year’s other shows, so it follows whatever was played most.
- A setlist filed within five years of the licence being paid can still reclaim the money as a direct payment.
Bar and restaurant residencies are paid quarterly from recordings ECAD makes at randomly selected venues, not from setlists.
ECAD identified or regularised more than 9,000 live repertoires in 2025, releasing about R$50 million, reported Nathália Pandeló of Mundo da Música. Shows paid R$151 million in the first half of 2026, up 25.4 percent, after automation lifted setlist intake tenfold, she wrote in July.
What to do with this
- Register every song and its splits with your association before touring. ECAD can only pay a work it can match.
- Write setlist delivery to ECAD into every performance contract, opening slots included.
- Keep a dated setlist per show. Your association can submit it if the promoter fails, but once that show is distributed, no credit adjustment is accepted.
- Chase shows from the last five years that ended up in Extra Show.
A Brazilian concert pays the song side only (see ECAD’s recording-share rules), so none of it shows on a distribution statement. InterSpace Distribution reports the master side line by line; the song side is yours to claim, as with Brazil’s 12 percent streaming share. Australia and Croatia run the same setlist test.
