In recent days, several digital distributors have been sending preventive communications to their customers. Messages written in a technical, seemingly reassuring manner, which many artists and publishers are reading superficially.
The problem is that those emails are not at all harmless. On the contrary, they represent the first sign of one of the most delicate and potentially destructive operations of recent years in the independent digital music sector.
At the center of it all is Merlin, a name that many are unfamiliar with, but which controls a huge part of the flow of rights and royalties related to the use of music on social platforms.
Merlin is not a distributor and it is not a label. It is the body that globally represents the digital rights of independent labels towards the major technology platforms. If your music has been used on Instagram, Facebook or TikTok, it most likely passed through Merlin, even if you never signed a direct contract with them.
In recent months, Merlin has launched a retroactive audit covering a time frame of approximately four years, from 2022 to 2024. This check concerns the use of music on UGC platforms, i.e. those contexts in which content is uploaded by users, such as videos, reels and shorts. The stated objective is to identify musical content that, according to the new contractual interpretations, would not have been suitable for monetization or would have presented critical issues from a rights perspective.
The critical point is that this isn't a forward-looking check, but a review of the past. In other words, royalties already paid are being recalculated, and in many cases Merlin has already asked the platforms to return amounts deemed undue. The platforms, in turn, are passing these recoveries on to distributors. And distributors are doing exactly what you might expect: passing the problem on to end users.
This means that in the coming months, many artists, publishers, and labels will find themselves facing withholdings on future royalties, payment freezes, or, in the most serious cases, actual demands for the return of sums already received. All this often without a takedown, a clear report, or a formal notice of irregularities ever having been issued in the past.
This is where the real alarm arises.
Many people think that if they've never received infringement notices, their catalog is safe. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. The absence of takedowns doesn't guarantee any immunity, because Merlin's audit isn't based solely on reports, but on new contractual interpretations and retroactively applied criteria. Covers, remixes, alternative versions, sound-alikes, and publishing catalogs that aren't perfectly secure or simply poorly documented are now under much more scrutiny than in the past.
The most serious problem, however, is another: no one truly defends artists and publishers. Merlin protects its agreements, platforms protect themselves, and distributors protect their contracts. Rights holders are left in the middle, often left alone to face incomprehensible reports and automatically applied recovery orders, with no real possibility of retaliation unless competent and timely intervention is undertaken.
In over twenty years of experience in the music industry, dealing with editorial management, digital distribution, and royalty recovery, I've seen dozens of similar cases. In many situations, the sums claimed back were not owed, or could have been successfully contested. In other cases, blocked or withheld royalties could be recovered by demonstrating the full legitimacy of the catalog or by correcting structural errors in distribution.
The difference, as always, is timing.
When the distributor applies the adjustment automatically, the damage is already done. When you intervene early, however, it is often possible to avoid the refund of amounts already paid or secure the catalog before it is affected.
This is why my invitation is direct and straightforward.
If you've received communications from your distributor, if you manage a publishing catalog, if you work with covers, remixes, or music widely used on social media, or if you simply want to understand if your catalog is at risk, now is the time to act.
A preventive consultation can make the difference between losing thousands of euros and protecting the value of your work.
You can schedule a meeting directly with me: I'll analyze your situation, assess the real risks, and, where possible, I'll work with my team to recover unpaid royalties or prevent them from being claimed back.
In the current context, ignoring the problem is the biggest mistake you can make.
Schedule a Meeting!
