Sony/ATV Music Publishing has announced that it will launch what it calls “major upgrades” to its royalty systems over the next 12 months.
These improvements, it says, will speed up how quickly songwriter earnings are processed and allow songwriters to “get paid faster than ever before”.
In what it calls “a ground-breaking move for a major publisher”, Sony/ATV is introducing real-time inter-company processing for all foreign earnings from every territory in which the company operates.
As a result, foreign earnings will now be reported and paid in the same period in which they are collected.
This means, for example, that a U.S. songwriter with earnings in December 2019 from one or more overseas territories will receive these royalties in the next regular distribution rather than in the following period as is more commonplace in the industry.
In addition, Sony/ATV will offer a new ‘Cash Out’ service, which will enable its songwriters to request some or all of their current royalty balance to be paid immediately, instead of having to wait until the next distribution.
“Powered by our industry-leading administration operations and best-in-class technology, we can now give our songwriters even greater control over their royalties and ensure that they get paid quicker than ever before.”
Jon Platt, Sony/ATV (pictured)
This service will be offered to the company’s songwriters without a fee. Once they have made any withdrawals, they will then receive the remainder of their balance during the next regular distribution.
Sony/ATV’s sister company under Sony Music Group, recorded music operation Sony Music, introduced a similar ‘Cash Out’ function as part of its own royalty system upgrade earlier this year.
Sony/ATV Chairman and CEO Jon Platt said: “I am proud to announce these ambitious new initiatives that will help to deliver our strategy to be the best service company in the world for songwriters.
“Powered by our industry-leading administration operations and best-in-class technology, we can now give our songwriters even greater control over their royalties and ensure that they get paid quicker than ever before.”
Real-time inter-company processing and the Cash Out service will start to be made available over the next year to all Sony/ATV songwriters who are signed up to the company’s royalty portal and app called SCORE, which gives songwriters and their teams real-time access to their current royalty account and historic earnings.
The account information on the portal and app is constantly updated so songwriters are able to see their latest earnings from all sources as soon as the company receives them rather than having to wait until their next royalty statement.
SCORE also provides an overview of historic earnings information that can be searched and organized by song title, income source, time period and territory.Music Business Worldwide
