Music Business Worldwide’s audience doesn’t need much tutoring about how big a problem the global industry’s so-called ‘black box’ has become.
For the few in need of a reminder: the ‘black box’ refers to the pile of performance and mechanical royalties from around the world that, due to industry failings, don’t get paid out to their rightful owners each year.
Instead, as these royalties remain unclaimed, collection societies have little option but to distribute this money on the basis of industry market share.
How big is this black box problem across music publishing and the recorded music industry? We… don’t really know. No-one does.