Brazil is a very musical country, which provides many opportunities for music publishers and record companies.

The most popular TV programmes, the “novellas” (soap opera), make great use of music and create significant synchronisation income. Local music accounts for over 70% of the market however there are many uses of cover versions of international works.
New income such as ring tones has become very important for writers and publishers. There are more than 90 millions portable phones users. The most successful paid download, a local version of an intl pop song hit, enjoyed more than 6 millions paid ring tones Broadband is still limited and there is only one company offering legal downloads however the expected high growth in broadband should expand opportunities for the market entry of more download companies. Hot Spot Wifi network are growing too.
Although Brazil is a developing country there are already a great number of MP3 players despite the high costs due to import duties. The traditional market of CD and DVD is stable although piracy is still at very high levels. The industry figures do not include the recent important growth of independent record companies.

The Brazilian music publishing industry does have a number of issues:

• The lack of a current industry agreement between record companies and publishers
• Low mechanical rates paid on DVDs
• Inability to audit record companies
• Over complicated public performance structure with some societies.

Those peculiarities and issues make it even more important to have a sub publisher in the country that has the ability and takes the time to work actively the original publisher’s catalogue.