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Universal Music Publishing to administer entire Prince catalogue

By | Published on Thursday 3 November 2016

Prince

Universal Music Publishing has announced a deal with the Prince estate to represent and administrate the publishing rights in all of the late musician’s songs. The major says that, via the deal, it is now “responsible for servicing and administering Prince’s expansive catalogue of songs” and “will also work closely with Prince’s estate to develop new creative outlets for his music”.

If you think Universal Music Publishing boss Jody Gerson is “THRILLED” about all this, you’ll be forgetting just how humbling becoming Prince’s exclusive publishing administrator can be. “We’re humbled to be entrusted with Prince’s catalogue”, said she. “I’m grateful to my entire team for their work in making this agreement a reality”.

“UMPG is a premiere destination for songwriters, because of the meticulous care, focus and passion we bring to creating opportunities for our artists and their body of work”, she continued. “With the timelessness and genius of Prince’s music, there are no limits to what we can achieve working with his estate. Prince’s popularity will only continue to grow around the world”.

One hopes there’ll also be some “meticulous care” employed before Universal starts issuing takedowns over YouTube videos in which babies dance to Prince’s pop songs. By which I mean some meticulous care to check whether said videos constitute ‘fair use’ under American law before pressing send on the takedown demand. What am I talking about, of course there will be!

Certainly Prince estate overseers Charles Koppelman and Londell McMillan reckon everything’s going to be well smart this time. “We are pleased that UMPG shall once again administer Prince’s music publishing worldwide”, said they last night, in perfect unison. “With this major agreement, the estate maintains ownership of Prince’s music, and now legions of fans from around the world will have even greater opportunities to continue to delight in his incomparable songwriting and musical expression”.



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