Estonian Authors Society - Music Royalties

Full automation of music royalty distribution from reports to payouts

Overview

The Estonian Authors Society (EAÜ) collects and distributes royalties to music creators - composers, lyricists and arrangers. Music is played across hundreds of different venues and platforms: TV channels, radio stations, VOD platforms, cinemas, restaurants, shopping centers, hotels and other public spaces.

For every usage report, the system needs to identify works, find their authors, determine each author's share and calculate payments. Most of this work was previously done manually - slow, error-prone and unsustainable as volumes grew.

We built a system that automates the full chain: receiving reports, identifying works and authors, calculating royalties and preparing payouts. The result - royalties for thousands of authors distributed accurately and quickly, with minimal manual work.

The Challenge

Music royalty distribution is more complex than it first appears. Data arrives in dozens of different formats - CSV files, XML exports, Excel spreadsheets - and every source structures its data differently.

Core challenges:

  • Reports from hundreds of sources - TV channels, radio stations, Spotify, YouTube, Netflix, cinemas, shopping centers, restaurants and many others. Each in its own format.
  • Work identification - the same song can appear in reports under different titles, spellings and language versions. Automatic matching is essential.
  • Author and share lookup - each work can have multiple authors in different roles (composer, lyricist, arranger) with varying ownership shares. Data must come from international databases.
  • CISAC CIS-Net integration - the international network of authors' societies is the primary source for cross-referencing works and author data. Integration must be reliable and up to date.
  • Royalty calculation - different tariffs and distribution rules depending on usage type (broadcast, streaming, public performance, background music).
  • Accounting system integration - payouts must flow automatically into the accounting software with correct bookkeeping entries.

The existing process relied heavily on spreadsheets and manual matching - each reporting cycle took weeks of work and errors had to be fixed constantly.

Our Approach

We built a comprehensive royalty distribution platform covering the entire process from report intake to accounting.

  • Report importer: automated data ingestion from various sources and formats. Custom parsers for each source type, normalizing data into a unified structure.
  • Work matching engine: intelligent work identification that accounts for title variations, alternative names and international codes (ISWC). Multi-stage matching - exact match, fuzzy matching and manual review for exceptions.
  • CISAC CIS-Net integration: automatic queries to the international database for work and author data. Author roles, shares and work associations updated systematically.
  • Automated royalty calculation: royalty computation based on usage type, source and applicable tariff structure. Each author's payment calculated from their share and role.
  • Admin dashboard: overview of exceptions and unmatched works, manual correction tools, audit trail for every decision.
  • Accounting integration: confirmed payouts forwarded automatically to the accounting system with correct bookkeeping entries. Payout documentation generated automatically.
  • Reporting: detailed breakdowns of distributed royalties by author, work, source and period.

The architecture is built for reliability and traceability - every report, match and calculation is auditable.

The Outcome

The system has fundamentally changed how EAÜ handles music royalty distribution.

  • Thousands of works identified and matched automatically from every reporting cycle.
  • Author shares and royalties calculated in seconds, not days.
  • Manual work reduced by an order of magnitude - human intervention only for exceptions.
  • Payouts reach accounting automatically with correct bookkeeping entries.
  • CISAC CIS-Net data keeps author and work information current at an international level.
  • Full traceability - for every payment, you can see which report, which source and which calculation produced it.

What used to take weeks of manual work now runs largely on its own. Authors get their royalties faster and more accurately.

Technologies & services

System Architecture, Database Design, CISAC CIS-Net Integration, Data Automation, Matching Algorithms, Accounting Integration, Backend & Frontend Development, UX/UI Design