The machinery of music royalty collection is seizing up in market after market, and the most ambitious artists are no longer waiting for a fix. They are building their own exits. From Harare to Addis Ababa, from Tbilisi to Lagos, a quiet but radical shift is underway: rights holders are bypassing broken collective management systems and routing their earnings through offshore structures they control. This is not the familiar story of local collection societies failing to pay; it is the next chapter, where the most entrepreneurial creators stop expecting those societies to work at all.
This week’s headlines paint a remarkably coherent picture of that fracture. In Zimbabwe, the royalty crisis reached a point where the country’s most-streamed artist simply built his own label offshore after a payout cycle that left some musicians with as little as three dollars Zimbabwe Paid Some Musicians Three Dollars in Royalties. In Nigeria, the Court of Appeal confirmed that COSON, once the loudest voice in the room, has no licence to collect royalties, leaving MCSN as the only approved society Nigeria’s Court of Appeal Just Confirmed COSON Has No Licence to Collect Royalties. In Ethiopia, a royalty system that has been technically ready since 2021 still does not pay, and the country’s five most-streamed artists have all reissued their catalogues through labels in Paris and the United States Ethiopia Has Been About to Pay Musicians Royalties Since 2021. And in Georgia, a legal reset that funnelled all royalties through a single accredited society drew formal written objections from five global rights bodies, including CISAC and IFPI Georgia Rebuilt Its Royalty System Around One Society. The common thread is not just dysfunction; it is the strategic response of artists and labels who are treating local collective management as a dead end and constructing parallel, often cross-border, revenue architectures.
The Collapse of the Single-Society Model
For decades, the promise of collective management was simple: one society collects from all users, deducts a commission, and distributes the rest to members. That model is now under attack from two directions. First, societies are losing their legal footing. In Nigeria, the Copyright Commission treated COSON’s licence as lapsed, and the Court of Appeal refused to intervene, effectively making MCSN the sole licensed entity Nigeria’s Court of Appeal Just Confirmed COSON Has No Licence to Collect Royalties. The result is not a clean transition but a vacuum of trust, with thousands of songwriters unsure where their money is or who has the right to collect it.
Second, even when a society is legally mandated, the global infrastructure that makes collective management work can revolt. Georgia’s 2023 legal reset created a single accredited society, a move that CISAC, IFPI, IFRRO, SCAPR and IMPF all objected to in writing Georgia Rebuilt Its Royalty System Around One Society. Their concern is not abstract: a monopoly society without reciprocal agreements can trap export streaming payments that should flow to foreign rights holders, while also leaving local artists with no competitive alternative. When five of the most powerful rights organizations on the planet tell a government its model is broken, the message is clear: the single-society approach is no longer fit for a borderless streaming economy.
The Artist as Offshore Entrepreneur
Faced with these failures, artists are doing what any rational economic actor would do: they are incorporating where the money can actually reach them. In Zimbabwe, the most-streamed artist responded to a payout cycle that delivered three-dollar cheques by building his own label offshore Zimbabwe Paid Some Musicians Three Dollars in Royalties. This is not a vanity project; it is a survival mechanism. By routing rights through a jurisdiction with functioning banking, transparent accounting, and direct deals with digital platforms, an artist can finally see real-time royalties that a local society could never deliver.
Ethiopia offers an even starker example. The country’s royalty system has been technically ready for five years, but the tariff was written for radio and venues, not for streaming Ethiopia Has Been About to Pay Musicians Royalties Since 2021. Meanwhile, the five most-streamed Ethiopian artists have all reissued their catalogues abroad, through labels in Paris and the United States. They are not waiting for a government that has been promising payments since 2021. They are treating their intellectual property as a global asset and domiciling it where the financial plumbing actually works. This is the new artist mindset: your catalogue’s legal home matters as much as your creative output.
Why the Old Fixes No Longer Work
It is tempting to call for better governance, more audits, or new leadership at these societies. But the problem is structural. Streaming royalties are generated in milliseconds across hundreds of territories, and a local society that cannot integrate with the global data-matching systems of the major platforms becomes a bottleneck, not a conduit. The Georgian case is instructive: even after a legal reset, the global bodies objected because a single society cannot guarantee the transparency and reciprocity that international rights management demands Georgia Rebuilt Its Royalty System Around One Society.
In Nigeria, the licensing chaos means that even when a society is collecting, the legal basis for that collection is contested, leaving licensees uncertain and artists unpaid. The COSON ruling does not solve the problem; it simply shifts the uncertainty to a different entity Nigeria’s Court of Appeal Just Confirmed COSON Has No Licence to Collect Royalties. For the independent artist, the lesson is brutal: the local society may be the last place your money ever sees.
The Kickstarter Counterweight: Direct Funding Without Intermediaries
Amid this gloom, a different kind of signal emerged this week. Kickstarter launched a $1 million Culture Fund to provide direct financial and promotional backing to independent creators across music, arts, and other fields Kickstarter Launches $1M Culture Fund to Support Indie Creators. This is not a royalty solution, but it is a philosophical cousin to the offshore escape. It bypasses the gatekeepers entirely and puts money directly into the hands of creators who can pitch their projects to a global audience. In a world where local collection societies are failing, direct-to-fan funding models become not just alternatives but necessities.
The Culture Fund is small, but its logic is scalable. It says: you do not need a society to validate your worth; you need a platform that connects your work to people willing to pay for it. For an artist in Lagos or Harare, that is a far more reliable proposition than waiting for a cheque from a society that may not have a licence or a bank account that works.
What This Means for Artists
The offshore escape is not just for superstars. Independent artists and music professionals can take concrete steps today to protect their earnings from broken local systems.
- Audit your catalogue’s legal home. If your music is registered with a society that is unlicensed, disputed, or technically unable to pay streaming royalties, you are leaving money on the table. Consider reissuing your catalogue through a label or aggregator in a jurisdiction with a functioning royalty infrastructure.
- Demand transparency from your CMO. Ask for a detailed statement of which platforms are being licensed, what tariffs apply, and when you can expect payment. If the answers are vague, treat that as a red flag.
- Explore direct licensing and alternative funding. Platforms like Kickstarter’s Culture Fund Kickstarter Launches $1M Culture Fund to Support Indie Creators and direct-to-fan models allow you to build revenue streams that do not depend on a local society’s competence. Even a modest Patreon or Bandcamp presence can outperform a dysfunctional royalty system.
- Watch the global objections. When CISAC and IFPI object to a country’s royalty model Georgia Rebuilt Its Royalty System Around One Society, they are signalling that international payments may be blocked or delayed. If you have streams in such territories, your money may be sitting in a frozen account. Know which markets are flagged and route your rights accordingly.
- Learn from the pioneers. The Zimbabwean artist who built an offshore label Zimbabwe Paid Some Musicians Three Dollars in Royalties and the Ethiopian acts who reissued in Paris Ethiopia Has Been About to Pay Musicians Royalties Since 2021 are not anomalies; they are the blueprint. Their actions tell you that intellectual property is mobile, and its home should be chosen strategically.
The great royalty unplugging is not a crisis of creativity; it is a crisis of infrastructure. And infrastructure can be rebuilt, but only by those who refuse to wait for permission. The artists who are already doing it are not just escaping a broken system; they are designing the one that will replace it.
