Sony/ATV to speed up royalty payments

The Real Time Royalties and Cash Out innovations will be made available over the next year to all Sony/ATV songwriters who are signed to the company’s royalty portal and SCORE app.

The app gives songwriters and their teams real-time access to their current royalty account and historic earnings that can be searched and organised by song title, income source, time period and territory.

The two innovations were adopted from its sister company Sony Music. Launched in May 2019, Real Time Royalties and Cash Out allow artists signed to Sony labels to access royalty information about their music much faster and access funds they are owed quicker and more frequently.

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

“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.”

The company is confident that the upgrades will “speed up how quickly songwriter earnings are processed and allow songwriters to get paid faster than ever before”.

Once initiated, Real Time Royalties will see the company introduce real-time, inter-company processing for all domestic and foreign earnings from every territory in which the company operates, rather than in the following period as is accepted in the industry.

The Cash Out service will, on the other hand, give songwriters greater control of their money by allowing them on-demand access, rather than having to wait for the next scheduled payment date.

The move reflects a push towards transparency in the industry, particularly in the hazy royalty structures in music publishing.