Published on Feb 19, 2026
The entertainment industry is experiencing seismic shifts. As Netflix moves forward with its $82.7 billion acquisition of Warner Bros.’ streaming and studio assets, creators, composers, and rights holders face a critical question: how will this mega-merger affect royalty collection?
The Deal That's Reshaping Entertainment
In January 2026, Netflix amended its offer for Warner Bros.to an all-cash transaction valued at $27.75 per share, bringing together two entertainment powerhouses. This acquisition isn't just about corporate consolidation – it has profound implications for how music, film, and television content is licensed, distributed, and monetised.
For anyone working in music licensing, film production, or content creation, understanding collecting societies has never been more crucial. As platforms merge and content libraries consolidate, the systems that track usage and distribute royalties become increasingly complex – and increasingly important.
What Are Collecting Societies and Why Do They Matter?
Collecting societies (also known as collective management organisations or CMOs) are the invisible infrastructure of the creative economy. They exist to solve a fundamental problem: when your music plays in a café in Tokyo, on a streaming platform in Brazil, or in a film screened across Europe, how do you get paid?
These organisations license rights on behalf of creators and collect royalties whenever copyrighted works are used. In the music industry, this includes:
In film and television, collective licensing becomes even more intricate, involving synchronization rights, broadcast royalties, and complex territorial agreements.
The Streaming Revolution and Monthly Payments
The landscape is already evolving rapidly. In 2025, PRS for Music announced plans to roll out monthly royalty payments from streaming services, starting with a pilot in March 2025 and transitioning to regular monthly payments from August 2025. This shift from quarterly to monthly distributions represents a significant improvement for creators who rely on streaming income.
In December 2025, PRS for Music distributed £274.9 million, up 4% year-on-year, with £13.5 million coming from BBC radio stations and £12.8 million from video-streaming platforms including Netflix, Disney+ and Apple TV. These figures illustrate the growing importance of streaming platforms in the royalty ecosystem.
What the Netflix-Warner Bros. Merger Means for Collecting Societies
The consolidation of Netflix and Warner Bros. creates unprecedented challenges and opportunities for collecting societies:
1. Massive Content Library Consolidation
Warner Bros. brings a century's worth of iconic content – from Casablanca to Harry Potter, from Friends to DC Comics properties. When this vast catalogue merges with Netflix's existing library, tracking usage becomes exponentially more complex. Every time a Warner Bros. film is streamed in a new territory, multiple collecting societies must coordinate to ensure composers, songwriters, and performers receive their royalties.
2. Changing Distribution Models
Netflix has committed to maintaining theatrical releases for Warner Bros. films, with CEO Ted Sarandos extending the theatrical window to 45 days. This hybrid model –combining theatrical, streaming, and potentially broadcast distribution – creates multiple royalty streams that collecting societies must track across different territories and platforms.
3. Cross-Border Complexity
Netflix operates globally, but collecting societies work within territorial boundaries. When a Warner Bros. production streams in 190+ countries simultaneously, dozens of collecting societies must work together to track usage and distribute royalties. The existing reciprocal agreements between societies (like the Santiago Agreement between European CMOs) will be tested at unprecedented scale.
4. Data and Transparency Challenges
Streaming generated roughly 69% of global recorded music revenue in 2024 and remains the dominant revenue source. As streaming dominates and catalogues consolidate, the volume of data that collecting societies must process grows exponentially. This merger will likely accelerate pressure on societies to modernise their data systems and improve transparency.
What This Means for Creators and Rights Holders
For songwriters, composers, performers, and music publishers, this merger underscores several critical realities:
Registration Is Essential: With content moving across platforms and territories at unprecedented speed, ensuring your works are properly registered with all relevant collecting societies is non-negotiable. Missing metadata or incorrect credits can result in royalties being held in "black boxes" – funds that societies cannot distribute because they cannot identify the rights holders.
Understanding Your Rights: The distinction between performance rights, mechanical rights, synchronization rights, and neighbouring rights becomes crucial when content appears on multiple platforms. A single Warner Bros. film on Netflix might generate:
International Registration: In 2025, the UK's PRS distributed nearly £275 million in royalties, sourced from a mix of streaming, radio broadcasts, and other uses. With global streaming, ensuring you're registered with collecting societies in key territories is essential. PRS has representation agreements with societies in over 100 countries, but creators need to understand how these reciprocal arrangements work.
Monitor Your Statements: As payment frequencies increase (like PRS's move to monthly streaming payments), creators have more opportunities to catch and correct errors. Regular monitoring of royalty statements helps identify missing payments before they become impossible to claim.
Join our 90-minute course led by expert lawyer, Mark Weston, by following this link 👉Collecting Societies in Music, Film & TV – our speedy yet comprehensive course on understanding and navigating collective rights management
Published on Feb 19, 2026 by Ella Thomas