Japanese authors' society JASRAC has once again reported lower year-on-year copyright-fee collections, underlining the serious challenges facing the world’s second-biggest music market.

Collections for the year ending March 31, 2010, fell 3.1% from the previous year to 109.5 billion yen ($1.2 billion), mainly due to a 10% decline in mechanical royalties to 36.3 billion yen ($396.2 million).

Last year, total collections were down 2.4%.

Performance-right royalties collections by Tokyo-based JASRAC (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers) edged up 0.6% to 52.3 billion yen ($570.8 million).

Royalties from polyphonic ringtones continued their steady decline, falling 29.1% to 806.8 million yen ($8.8 million), while those from master ringtones fell 20.6% to 1.4 billion yen ($15.3 million). But fees from full-song downloads (mainly via mobile phones) rose 18.2% to 5.1 billion yen ($55.7 million), although that was slower than last year’s healthy 39.2% growth rate

Also included in JASRAC's collections were 1.4 billion yen ($15.3 million) in fees from publications, down 10.4%, and 3.6 billion yen ($39.3 million) in royalties from rental of CDs and videos, down 2.4%.