Warner Chappell Music has inked an exclusive sub-publishing agreement with Round Hill Music. Warner Chappell will administer Round Hill copyrights around the world, excluding the United States, the British Isles and the Nordics. Warner Chappell Music will also explore creative opportunities for Round Hill songs and songwriters across the globe.

“In less than a decade, Round Hill has built an extraordinary collection of evergreen copyrights and iconic catalogs, while at the same time signing some of today’s most exciting and gifted songwriters,” said Warner Chappell Music Co-Chair & CEO Guy Moot and Co-Chair & COO Carianne Marshall. “The global potential is enormous, and all of us at Warner Chappell around the world are thrilled to partner with Josh, Richard, Neil and the entire Round Hill team to find new avenues and audiences for this amazing body of work.”

“Carianne and Guy have a vision for Warner Chappell that works really well for the Round Hill catalog overseas,” said Round Hill Music President Neil Gillis. “We know and respect their team, and we are looking forward to a long and wonderful partnership.”

Round Hill was founded in 2010 by Josh Gruss along with Richard Rowe and Neil Gillis. Its catalog includes hit songs such as “Happy Together,” “All of Me,” “She Loves You,” “Video Killed The Radio Star,” “Calendar Girl,” “Living In America,” “Cool Kids,” “Best Day Of My Life,” “Fever,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” “The Kids Are Alright,” “Total Eclipse Of The Heart,” “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” “Bye, Bye, Bye,” “When a Man Loves a Woman,” “Cherry Pie,” “Land of A Thousand Dances,” I Feel Good,” “Marry You,” “What A Wonderful World,” and many more.

Some of Round Hill’s current artists and songwriters include Valerie Broussard, Brittany Howard, Des Rocs, Topaz Jones, Morgan Taylor Reid, Tim Myers, Cobi, Thutmose, Mama Haze, Gramatik, Shawn Hook, TT the Artist, Palm Springsteen, Marc Broussard, REZZ, Nick Waterhouse, Confidence Man, Bones UK, Katie Pruitt, Mr. Gabriel, Ryan Shaw, Langhorn Slim and bands such as American Authors, Yonaka, Bronze Radio Returns, SHEL, Sleater-Kinney, Lettuce, Florida Georgia Line, Too Many Zooz, Royal Teeth, VHS Collection, and Umphrey’s McGee.

Round Hill Nashville’s roster of hit songwriters includes Ashley Gorley, Dallas Davidson, Jimmy Robbins, Wade Kirby, Eric Arjes, and Danny Myrick. Through a partnership with Big Loud, Round Hill Nashville also represents writers like Craig Wiseman, Rodney Clawson, Sarah Buxton, and Matt Dragstrem.

SoundExchange has teamed with SourceAudio to offer a solution to help secure music with fully integrated, global licenses, beginning in 2020. The collaboration will provide podcastmusic.com, a digital music marketplace for podcasters, with access to SoundExchange’s membership of music creators and offers licensing for label and publisher-owned music. Participation in this service by publishers, labels, and other rights owners is on a voluntary basis.

Podcastmusic.com currently has a database of more than 700,000 production and music bed tracks; the collaboration will provide global license for all rights needed to use feature music in a podcast, including master use, performance, synchronization, and mechanical rights. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the podcast industry is forecasted to produce more than $1 billion in advertising revenue by 2021.

“The podcast industry is rapidly growing, and this collaboration will provide SoundExchange’s music creators—both labels and publishers—with an additional way to monetize their work by making their music available on Podcastmusic.com if they choose,” said Michael Huppe, President and CEO of SoundExchange. “Our collaboration with SourceAudio will make the process of licensing music simpler through a one-stop licensing marketplace.”

“Currently there is no simple way for a podcaster to acquire rights for feature music in their podcasts. We are solving that by working with SoundExchange,” said Geoffrey Grotz, CEO/Co-Founder of SourceAudio. “By connecting with SoundExchange’s community of music creators including labels, artists, publishers and songwriters, and benefitting from their deep expertise, we will be able to deliver a high-quality repertoire of music for podcasters.”

Music creators interested in making their sound recordings available for podcasts can visit podcastmusic.com/rights-holders for more information.

Sony/ATV Music Publishing has made several major administration upgrades to the way it reports and pays royalties to its songwriters. Over the next year, the company will roll out new initiatives that will speed up how quickly songwriter earnings are processed and to allow songwriters to get paid faster.

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. For example, a U.S. songwriter with earnings in December 2019 from one or more overseas territories will now receive these royalties in the next regular distribution rather than in the following period, as is industry standard.

In addition, Sony/ATV will offer a new Cash Out service which will allow its writers to request some or all of their current royalty balance to be paid immediately, instead of having to wait until the next distribution. This service will be offered to the company’s writers without a fee. Once they have made any withdrawals, they will then receive the remainder of their balance during the next regular distribution.

“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,” said Sony/ATV Chairman and CEO Jon Platt. “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 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.

Pictured (L-R): Brian Kelley, Jordan Schmidt, Tyler Hubbard. Photo: Ivan Meneses/Kursza

Jordan Schmidt has signed a new deal with his publisher Tree Vibez Music. The music publishing company, founded by Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard, boasts a roster including Corey Crowder, James McNair, RaeLynn, Blake Redferrin, Daniel Ross, Canaan Smith, Ernest K. Smith, and Jared Mullins. Moving forward, Schmidt’s catalog will be administered by Sony/ATV.

“I’m very excited to keep working with BK, Tyler, and Tree Vibez,” says Schmidt. “We’ve been able to accomplish a whole lot together over the past four years, and I can’t wait to see what we do ahead. I started my writing career with Tree Vibez and I couldn’t imagine a better home for me!”

Since joining Tree Vibez as its flagship songwriter in 2015, Schmidt has earned five No. 1 singles, including “God’s Country,” “Drunk Me,” “You Make It Easy,” the 4x Platinum “What Ifs” and “Lights Come On.” He has had 82 cuts in total, including 10 by Florida Georgia Line.

“It’s already been an unbelievable journey with Jordan and we feel like we’re just getting started,” shares FGL’s Kelley. “He’s been the flagship TVM writer and continues to create and produce on a level that is unmatched.”

FGL’s Hubbard agrees, “We couldn’t be more excited and proud to continue this relationship and build on the strong foundation that’s already there. We admire how Jordan continues to step up his game and inspire not only the people around him, but the industry as a whole. We don’t call him J VIBE for nothing.”

“Jordan has proven himself to be a songwriting force in our industry. Besides his most recent success, Jordan’s work exhibits an original voice in Country music songwriting and producing today,” says TVM General Manager Leslie T. DiPiero. “Listen to his music if you want to know where country music is headed.”