Benefits of AIE Membership

We defend your rights

Copyright laws provide music performers or executants with a whole set of rights for their performances and interpretations in sound and audio visual recordings.

AIE defends the rights of music performers and executants:

AIE is a non-profit society which does not obtain any benefits or dividends from its activity.

AIE represents music performers vis-à-vis all users and companies which use phonograms and audio visual recordings with musical performances by reaching reasonable agreements and asserting their rights before the courts.

AIE is intensively involved in raising awareness and vindicating the rights and interests of the performers collective in several national and international forums.

AIE is the only Management Entity authorized by the Ministry of Culture and entitled to enforce the remuneration corresponding to the musical performances fixed in phonograms and audio visual recordings, recognized by law as a collective management activity.

Public communication

The right to public communication, conferred to all music performers and executants, derives from the use of their performances in all kinds of acts an undetermined plurality of people can access and attend.

Music performers are granted two different types of remuneration by law, and AIE is in charge of their management:

Remuneration for public communication of phonograms: If a phonogram published for commercial purposes, or a reproduction thereof, is used directly for broadcasting or for any communication to the public, a single equitable remuneration shall be paid by the user to the performers, or to the producers of the phonograms, or to both. Right recognized in Article 12 of the Rome Convention.

Remuneration for public communication of audio visual recordings: If an audio visual recording is used directly for broadcasting or for any communication to the public, a single equitable remuneration shall be paid by the user to the performers or executants. The Spanish legislator reinforced the protection for this type of use pursuant to the faculty of the Member States of the European Community to establish a greater protection in favour of the right holders of copyright and certain related rights than that contained in Article 8 of Directive 92/100/EEC.

Rental

Rental means making available to the public an original or copy of a recorded interpretation for use, for a limited period of time and for direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage. A remuneration for such activity of phonogram and audio visual recordings rental is granted to music performers by law.

AIE is the legally authorized entity that enforces this right for music performers.

'Making available'

The ‘making available’ right enables artists to authorize the public access to their works in such a way that members of the public may access these from a place and a time individually chosen by them.

The system established by the Law on Intellectual Property provides for the transfer of the ‘making available’ right of the performer in favour of the musical or audio visual producer after subscribing to the production agreement. The performer, however, preserves an equitable remuneration which shall be enforced by the user.

AIE is the legally authorized entity that enforces this right for music performers.

Private copying

Private copying is a limitation to the exclusive reproduction right in favour of natural persons, who are allowed to reproduce and copy any protected work for private use, and for purposes that are neither directly nor indirectly commercial, without previous authorization of right holders (performers, authors and producers).

Both the European regulations and our Law on Intellectual Property establish a compensation scheme for right holders to benefit from this exemption through an ‘equitable compensation’ for the benefits foregone as a consequence of their establishment.

As of 31 December 2011, compensation for private copying applied a levy on recording equipment, devices and data media which allowed the recording of works protected by intellectual property rights (CDs, external disks, MP3, mobile phones, etc.). The so called ‘digital canon’ (private copying levy) had to be paid by manufacturers and distributors of these equipment and media.

In 2012, this compensation scheme was replaced by a system of remuneration charged to the General State Budget, the amount of which decreased drastically (from 115 million euros to 5 million euros).

The system was appealed against by all management entities and, finally, last June the Court of Justice of the European Union declared the incompatibility of the Spanish system with European Law, which also was recently confirmed by our Supreme Court.

AIE, through the Digital Single Window (which includes all management entities), is the entity legally authorized to administer and distribute this compensation on behalf of musical artists.

Rights distribution

The Law on Intellectual Property requires that Collective Management Organizations be non-profit entities.

AIE registers the declarations of musical interpretations fixed in phonograms and audio visual recordings, and performs equitable distributions in proportion to their degree of use. Being an AIE member and registering your repertoire will allow you to promptly and efficiently receive the revenues generated by the exploitation of your intellectual property rights recognized by law.

Rights collected by AIE in Spain and in the world are equitably distributed among performers, the real owners of these rights.

Any business, establishment, broadcasting organization, TV station, movie theatre, etc., that makes available to the public any musical or audio visual interpretations belonging to AIE repertoire shall pay the remuneration corresponding to the rights of music performers or executants.

Find further details on the distribution of rights in our AIE Annual Report (PDF).

Distribution calendar

Find below the 2026 distribution calendar:

Period	Distribution	Date
March	Public communication of phonograms	26-03-2026
	Private copy of phonograms
	Complementary distribution
	International
	New members
June	Public communication of phonograms	18-06-2026
	Making available of phonograms
	Public communication of audiovisual recordings
	Private copy of audiovisual recordings
	International
	New members
September	Public communication of phonograms	24-09-2026
	Private copy of phonograms
	International
	New members
December	Public communication of audiovisual recordings	01-12-2026
	Private copy of audiovisual recordings
	Making available of audiovisual recordings
	Complementary distribution
	Annual supplementary remuneration
	Publicity
	International
	Historical file
	New members

Summary of distribution norms

DISTRIBUTION NORMS

Action plan for unclaimed interpretations

This action plan outlines a roadmap of AIE’s major initiatives in 2026 to improve the documentation of our members and repertoire database, as well as the information regarding the use of phonograms and audio visual recordings. In this way, the entity can ensure the maximum allocation of the collected amounts and the correct distribution to their right holders.

RIGHT	INITIATIVE OR PROJECT	ACTION
Public Communication, Private Copying and Making Available of Phonograms	Main artist identification	Search for information to create and properly document the main artists appearing in the usage data.
Public Communication, Private Copying and Making Available of Audiovisual Recordings	Not identified as having Spain as the country of production	Creation and proper documentation of audiovisual recordings and productions broadcast on television and VOD platforms.
Public Communication, Private Copying and Making Available of Phonograms and Audiovisual Recordings	Registration sheets for AIE members Phonograms and Audiovisual Recordings	Semi‑annual preparation of reports containing the repertoire of AIE members with tracks pending registration. Sending the registration sheets to members for confirmation. Registering and processing the registration sheets.
Public Communication, Private Copying and Making Available of Phonograms and Audiovisual Recordings	Outreach – Non‑AIE members	Outreach: preparation of reports identifying Spanish main artists who are not AIE members, in order to locate them and encourage their affiliation with the society.
Public Communication, Private Copying and Making Available of Phonograms	Active search for artists not affiliated with any Neighboring Rights Organization.	Conducting research to determine the artist’s country of birth. Sending to the societies of each country with which we have reciprocity agreements, the list of artists with their country of birth. Receiving information from the foreign societies. Updating the information in our database.
Public Communication, Private Copying and Making Available of Phonograms	Bands without identifiable members or without affiliation to a Neighboring Rights Organization.	Obtaining the list of such bands. Improving documentation through online research, in order to update information on the band members and identify the potential Neighboring Rights Organization representing them.
Public Communication, Private Copying and Making available of Phonograms	Signing of reciprocity agreements with foreign Neighboring Rights Organizations.	AIE actively works on signing reciprocity agreements with Neighboring Rights Organizations worldwide.
Public Communication, Private Copying and Making Available of Phonograms and Audiovisual Recordings	Improving data quality to optimize repertoire identification.	The objective is to ensure accurate, precise, and consistent data in order to improve business operations: 1. Initial diagnosis: identify possible mistakes. 2. Correction and prevention of new mistakes. 3. Validations and checks: document the review of completed processes and promote continuous improvement.
Public Communication, Private Copying and Making available of Phonograms	Request to foreign Neighboring Rights Organizations for the artists’ repertoire, coded by ISRC.	It will facilitate the automatic identification of the repertoire, and continuous monitoring will be carried out.
Public Communication, Private Copying and Making available of Phonograms and Audiovisual Recordings	Lowering the payment threshold to less than €20.	Conducting studies on the impact of this measure on artists.
Public Communication, Private Copying and Making available of Phonograms and Audiovisual Recordings	Improving usage information from providers (Spotify, Netflix, etc.).	Meetings and discussions with the different providers to improve the data received in the usage information, enabling more accurate distributions.
Public Communication, Private Copying and Making available of Audiovisual Recordings	Review of tracks and audiovisual recordings without session musicians’ participation.	Carry out a review focused on tracks and audiovisual recordings that do not have session musicians’ participation in order to pay 100% of the amount.

Legal Consulting

With the aim to provide its members with a comprehensive service, AIE affiliates are offered a legal consulting service on intellectual property and performers rights management.

In the same way, AIE monitors and studies the Spanish legislative evolution with regard to intellectual property and to the rights managed by the entity and proposes the most appropriate measures to effectively protect these rights. On the international front, AIE participates in the monitoring and studying of the current international legislation on Intellectual Property, the laws promoted by the European Union institutions and the legislation rooted in international treaties, mostly those elaborated within WIPO. Furthermore, AIE collaborates with the legal departments of the international organizations in which the entity is involved: FILAIE and GIART, both chaired by AIE.

AIE Legal Department cooperates with the legal department of the OCR (Joint Collecting Society for Performers and Producers), which comprises AIE and AGEDI -the intellectual property rights management entity for phonogram producers. AGEDI is the entity responsible for the management and collection of the right to remuneration corresponding to performers and producers, and due to the public communication of phonograms.