SCF, the Italian performing rights collective, closed out 2024 with distributions of over 51 million euros. This puts Italy in the top ten worldwide for PRO distributions.
In the last year, SCF, the leading collecting society in Italy, distributed over 51 million euros to its members and other collective societies. The share distributed to producers exceeded 42 million euros and recorded a significant increase of 7.7%, compared to 2023.
That result was supported by double-digit growth in performance rights (+19.3%), driven by both the Broadcasting and Web sector (+12.6%) and the Public Performance sector (+27.4%). This more than offset the contraction recorded in the Private Copy distribution (-15.4%), resulting from the decline in Italian sales of digital devices.
The userbase has exceeded over 200,000 subjects, marking +210% compared to 2008, thanks to constant awareness-raising and acquisition work, targeted legal activities, and anti-piracy actions. That strengthening of the base has continued in 2024 with significant growth in members, especially among independent record producers, both local and international, represented by intermediary companies. This positions SCF as the main reference collecting society for independent producers.
SCF has continued to invest in digitalization and improved transparency, with the release of the new Katalegale dashboard for analytical monitoring of royalties, the enhancement of the automatic matching algorithm, and the reduction of attribution conflicts by more than 95%.
In 2024, SCF also worked on enriching its catalog, which has 26.5 million tracks. The Repertoire Data Exchange (RDX), the centralized service for the recording industry, has seen increasing adoption by producers, improving the quality of repertoire management and distribution of music rights.
Concurrently, 1,286 analytical reports were drawn up (of which 920 were for radio stations alone), with a focus on tracks with the greatest economic impact. There was also a focus on the introduction of a new area for the collection and distribution of performance rights for the use of music in films, TV, documentaries, and other audiovisual works.
SCF further expanded its network of international agreements, signing new agreements with PPCA (Australia), PPL India, ZAPRAF (Croatia), and UNIMPRO (Peru). The control over private copying abroad was also strengthened, thanks to new management agreements, with the aim of maximizing the economic protection of Italian producers even outside national borders.
In line with its commitment to maximizing distributions to rights holders, SCF also announced a further reduction in the administration fee on performance rights for 2025, which went from 17% to 15% for the broadcast and web segment. This level has not been seen for over a decade.
“The 2024 budget represents an important point of balance between growth, efficiency, and innovation. We have managed to increase the distributions, strengthen the international network, further reduce the administration fees and offer our clients increasingly advanced tools for the analysis of royalties.
“[The result is] the confirmation of Italy as the seventh country in the world for performance rights—as reported by IFPI in the recent Global Music Report—is the strongest signal of the system work that we are carrying out consistently,” said Mariano Fiorito, General Director at SCF. “We will continue on this path, with the aim of enhancing the Italian repertoire in all its forms.”
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