Dear members of the Songtrust Community,
I wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your partnership as we enter the New Year.
Now, more than ever, you have a choice of companies and organizations to work with for your publishing rights management. We welcome the opportunity to demonstrate the value we bring to our clients and the publishing rights they trust us to administer, and we are committed to conducting our work on your behalf with accuracy, precision, and thoughtfulness. With new platforms and uses of musical compositions around the world emerging regularly, this is no simple task, and we are focused every day on adapting and excelling in this changing industry.
We do this in a number of ways: through our incredible team of global copyright experts; optimized and scalable processes and workflows; and our close relationships with performing rights societies, collective management organizations, digital music services, and our peers in the industry with whom we can learn and develop.
Music publishing rights and industry practices are continually reviewed and updated, and with the number of collaborators in songwriting continuing to increase and the complexity that entails, we always have to anticipate how those changes will impact the work we do and aim to be in front of it. I often joke that Songtrust is focused on the “Three Ps” - the “Painful Parts of Publishing”- rather than the more “glamorous” areas of synchronization licensing and other forms of creative exploitation. I love what we do. It’s hard, it’s challenging, and it’s very satisfying.
Every day, week, month, and year we are helping more songwriters access the publishing royalties they’re owed. I’m so proud of the royalties we’re processing and paying out, which continue to increase not just from the major streaming services, but from new markets in Africa, South America, Asia, eastern Europe, and more. More people are writing songs, making beats, and producing tracks around the world, and there are more reasons than ever to work with a company like Songtrust to help make it easier to collect those earned royalties.
In the year ahead, in addition to our commitment to the above core work, we’re continuing to focus on how we support our client community and how we can create an environment for our staff, clients, and prospective clients that is centered on diversity, equity, and inclusion. The world of songwriting remains widely open to improved representation in many dimensions: gender, genre, and geography among them. We want to meet our clients and prospective clients where they are around the world, learn from them, and reconsider our approach regularly so that we might be a partner in changing the status quo.
There’s a lot of fun work ahead and lots of circumstances I’m sure we can’t yet anticipate. Our team is here to listen and support. We look forward to doing this together with you.
My sincere best,
Molly Neuman
Songtrust President
If you have questions about music publishing or Songtrust, reach out to our team, check out our help center, or download our many resources.
