SoundExchange and MusicNation will pay artists for music played in each other's markets

SoundExchange has signed a reciprocal agreement with Music Nation Copyrights Management, known as MusicNation, covering neighbouring rights in the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The two organisations announced it on Thursday 17 September.

The mechanics are simple enough. Artists and rights owners registered with SoundExchange will be paid when their recordings are played in the UAE, and Emirati creators will be paid when their music is played in the United States. It also opens the Emirates to some of the collecting societies SoundExchange works with, who can now collect UAE royalties through agreements they already hold with the Washington organisation rather than negotiating their own.

Michael Huppe, SoundExchange's president and chief executive, called it a new revenue stream for the artists and rights owners on its books, and said it lets the organisation extend the same service to partner societies elsewhere. The deal builds on a partnership announced in March 2025, under which SoundExchange supplies technology, data and expertise to support neighbouring rights administration in the UAE.

From the other side, Rasha Khalifa Al Mubarak, MusicNation's chairwoman, framed it as a national milestone, arguing that a country attracting foreign investment into its creative economy has a responsibility to build systems that protect musical intellectual property to global standards. Amer M. Samhoun, the chief executive, made the narrower point that international societies now have reason to trust the market's plumbing.

That plumbing is extremely new. The UAE's Ministry of Economy issued its first collective management licence only in April 2025, to the Emirates Music Rights Association. MusicNation received its own permit two months later and began operating that October. The government presented the first licence as part of its Vision 2031 programme, which sets out to build a creative hub by putting the legislation in place before the industry arrives.

The numbers behind that ambition are not small. Cultural and creative industries were worth 3.5 per cent of UAE GDP in 2022, or 54.4 billion dirhams, about $14.8 billion, on government figures published alongside that first licence. Foreign societies have been moving in since: Sacem signed a representation agreement with EMRA in February and has worked with IFPI and the UK's PPL on a collection framework, while Abu Dhabi's ESMAA, launched by PopArabia in 2020, represents Canada's SOCAN and the UK's PRS For Music. Al Mubarak also chairs Dubai Global Music City, which is building a music district with Universal Music Group, including the first Capitol Studios facilities outside Hollywood.

The regional growth figures explain the queue. Recorded music revenues across the Middle East and North Africa grew 15.2 per cent year on year in 2025, making it the joint second-fastest-growing region in the world alongside Sub-Saharan Africa, after 22.8 per cent growth in 2024 when it led the world outright. Streaming generated 97.5 per cent of the region's recorded music revenue last year. Global revenues, by comparison, grew 6.4 per cent to $31.7 billion.

SoundExchange itself now holds more than 100 agreements with collecting societies, covering what it calls 93 per cent of the available global neighbouring rights market, with nearly 600,000 artists and rights owners using it to collect internationally and more than $13 billion distributed to date on behalf of over 800,000 creators. Its own distributions fell last year, though, to an unaudited $991.5 million, down 5.9 per cent, which it puts down to fewer settlements, lower reported SiriusXM revenue and the underpayment behind the lawsuit it brought against that broadcaster in 2023. A judge dismissed that case last August, ruling that the Copyright Act gives SoundExchange no right to sue over unpaid royalties; it is appealing at the Second Circuit and puts the alleged shortfall at more than $400 million. No figures or start date for payments under the UAE deal were given. Canadian rights consolidation covered here earlier, SOCAN's purchase of CMRRA, is the nearest recent comparison.