The Secretariat’s compliance monitoring follows an annual cycle aligned with the General Assembly (GA):

The obligations arising from the Statutes, Professional Rules, and Binding Resolutions are classified into two categories according to how they are monitored.

Category 1: Obligations actively monitored by the Secretariat

These obligations are systematically reviewed by the Secretariat on an annual basis as part of the monitoring calendar described above.

General membership criteria

• Management of authors’ rights as primary activity, including effective collection, distribution, and governance (Statutes, Art. 8–9)
• Authorisation to operate in accordance with applicable law (Statutes, Art. 8–9; Professional Rules, Rule 20)
• Compliance with financial obligations to CISAC, including payment of the annual Subscription (Statutes, Art. 15, Art. 118–127) and the CIS Tools payments
• Signature of the CISAC Membership Agreement and CIS Tools User contract (Statutes, Art. 15) 

Transparency: annual submissions

• Statement of Professional Rules Compliance (Statutes, Art. 15; Professional Rules, Rule 8)
• Statement of Income and Expenditure (Statutes, Art. 15; Professional Rules, Rule 8)
• Annual Report (Professional Rules, Rule 8) 
• Audited Accounts (Professional Rules, Rule 7)
• Distribution Rules, if modified (Professional Rules, Rule 8; Music Binding Resolutions, Art. 17)
• Statutes of the society, if modified (Professional Rules, Rule 7)
• List of sister societies (Professional Rules, Rule 8)
• KYC process (Binding Resolutions — applicable across all repertoires)

CIS Tools

• IPI: date of latest update and number of rightsholders registered — not less than once per calendar year (Binding Resolutions)
• CIS-Net (Music): date of latest update and number of works submitted (Music Binding Resolutions, Art. 10)
• IDA (Audiovisual): date of latest update and number of works submitted (AV Binding Resolutions, Art. 10) 

Financial performance indicators

• Total domestic and international collections, including comparison with previous years
• Percentage of administrative deductions
• Total distributed to members and to sister societies
• Total undistributed at year end and ratio of undistributed compared to total annual collections

These indicators are assessed by the Secretariat in the context of the membership criteria under Article 8(c) and 8(i) of the Statutes (effective machinery for collection and distribution; effective collection and distribution of Royalties) and the relevant provisions of the Professional Rules.

These obligations are not systematically monitored by the Secretariat on an annual basis. 

They may come to the Secretariat’s attention through:

• Complaints by a Sister Society under Articles 24-28 of the Professional Rules 
• Requests from third parties under Articles 29-31 of the Professional Rules
• Confidential peer notices (under development - expected adoption at the 2027 General Assembly)
• Compliance Reviews and Developmental Reviews under Articles 32-35 of the Professional Rules  

The following obligations fall into this category:

Corporate governance (Professional Rules, Rule 5)

• Openness to Creators and publishers of all nationalities
• Non-discrimination between Creators, publishers, or Sister Societies
• Right of Creators and publishers to terminate affiliation agreements
• Fair balance between Creators and publishers on the Supervisory Body
• Effective and independent supervision of the Management Body by the Supervisory Body
• Compliance with applicable laws and regulations 

Licensing and collections (Professional Rules, Rules 15–16)

• Reasonable endeavours to license all uses of repertoire
• Prompt collection of all licensing income
• Monitoring and protection of repertoire against unauthorised use
• Non-discriminatory licensing on the basis of objective criteria 

Documentation (Professional Rules, Rule 17; Binding Resolutions)

• Accurate and up-to-date documentation of repertoire, rights, and territory
• Compliance with CIS-Net, IDA, and IPI Business Rules
• Consultation of databases for identification of interested parties 

Distribution (Professional Rules, Rules 18A–18C; Binding Resolutions)

• Distribution based on actual usage or statistically valid sample
• Equal diligence and fairness between distributions to affiliates and to sister societies
• Timely distribution to sister societies (no less than once a year; quarterly target for societies with collections over €10M)
• Compliance with sub-publication distribution keys (50% cap)
• Debit/credit payment adjustments, unidentified uses, insufficient documentation, and fees in error procedures

Confidentiality (Professional Rules, Rules 13–14)

• Obligation to refrain from disclosing confidential information, subject to applicable exceptions  

Administration (Professional Rules, Rule 22)

• Staff training and development programmes 

Non-compliance with the obligations described above may lead to sanctions under the CISAC Statutes: 

Article 21: Automatic loss of certain rights (GA participation, voting) for Members, Provisionals, or Associates in arrears with the CISAC fees by more than one calendar year. 

Article 22: The Board may suspend any or all rights granted to a Member, Provisional, or Associate that has failed to comply with financial obligations, the Statement of Professional Rules Compliance, the Statement of Income and Expenditure, or transparency obligations. 

Articles 23–24: Upon Board recommendation and General Assembly decision, sanctions may include warning, censure, fine, temporary expulsion, or permanent expulsion. 

For Full Members, non-compliance may lead to the membership status change from Member to Provisional (Statutes, Art. 20). 

For Provisional Members, non-compliance is also taken into account in the assessment of Probation Period extensions (Statutes, Art. 18–19).