Round Hill Music has announced the launch of a new neighbouring rights agency to be called Sound Hill. The plan is to make the music rights firm's existing neighbouring rights operation - which it currently uses to administrate the public performance royalties generated by its own recordings catalogue - available to other artists, musicians, producers and labels.
In this context 'neighbouring rights' means the performance and communication elements of the sound recording copyright, and therefore we're talking about the royalties due to both labels and performers when recordings are broadcast or played in public spaces.
That income is actually collected in each market by the local record industry's collecting society. Neighbouring rights agencies manage the relationship between labels and performers and the different societies, making sure all their recordings are properly logged in the various society databases, and that they are getting every penny they are due when their recordings are broadcast and played.
Round Hill says it is launching its own agency in this domain because "this is one of the music industry's fastest-growing revenue streams". The new division is actually looking to both acquire and administrate these rights, offering cash advances in both scenarios.
It says: "The company aims to pay cash for a full or partial acquisition of these rights, or cash advances in exchange for long term administration rights with a pre-determined commission on the royalties collected. Sound Hill views this as a potential lifeline for touring artists who may require financing to tide them over during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis".
The new agency will be headed up by Round Hill's Manager Of Royalty Services And Label Operations, Robert Brenner, who says: "Round Hill has been collecting its own label share of neighbouring rights for many years and the launch of Sound Hill acknowledges that this is an area where our company can provide real value to artists and others who need a highly efficient collection service alongside royalty financing".
Meanwhile, Round Hill CEO Josh Gruss adds: "We are always looking to offer more services to our artists and Sound Hill will give us the ability to provide them and others with a world class service run by an amazing team who have the experience and expertise to maximise the huge opportunities now available in this fast-growing space".