DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, UK & IRELAND, SONGTRUST APPEARING ON: PORTAL COMBAT
LARA BAKER
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact the music business, royalty payments are more important than ever. Here, Songtrust’s Lara Baker talks about the rights platform’s grand plan to support independent songwriters and music companies...
WORDS: ANDRE PAINE
How has Songtrust developed the royalties platform for its clients?
“When Songtrust was created, the idea was to go to the songwriters with easily accessible real-time data about what royalties their songs are actually earning, and from where. Historically, I don’t think that the publishing world has been very transparent with its data. So Songtrust is really putting the power back into the hands of the writer by sharing this information. We’ve developed a royalties dashboard where clients can see, at the click of a button, exactly what’s come through from all around the world. And there’s a global heat map, so they can see where in the world those royalties are being generated.”
What sort of feedback have you had from writers? “A lot of songwriters or rights-holders really want data and insights, but it also needs to be provided in a really accessible, searchable and digestible way in order for it to be useful. The Songtrust dashboard is really easy to use, clients can see exactly what’s coming in from any of the 60 pay sources. They particularly like the maps so they can see where those royalties are coming from. We have a lot of business clients who might have multiple writers on one account. So they can easily download royalty statements by writer, which allows them to really dig into their data. The level of transparency we offer and the data we share are critical to our mission to empower songwriters.”
Are there challenges with that amount of data? “There’s always going to be work to be done on metadata accuracy and infrastructure across the industry. Without clean metadata, it’s really a huge challenge to make sure that the right people are remunerated for their work. One of the things we really focus on is how this starts right at the beginning of the journey with the songwriters themselves. So we put a huge effort into educating songwriters on how publishing works and how to ensure they get paid what they are due. We have resources like a template split sheet, which writers can use when they’re co-writing to record exactly who has what share of the song. That’s not really a fun conversation to have at that creative
56 | Music Week
moment when you’re collaborating, but it’s so essential to avoid conflicts and help payments down the line.”
What differentiates Songtrust from the more traditional publishers?
“First and foremost, the writers retain their rights and we’re just charging an admin fee on what we collect. What’s really different is the amount of data that we are able to share with them and how transparent we are about it. But it’s definitely changing, you’re starting to see other companies having dashboards and provide royalty data as well.”
How important have these insights been for your clients during Covid-19? “As certain revenue streams – with live being the most obvious one – have paused or gone away during the pandemic, songwriters, the teams around them and rights-holders have looked to make sure that they’re maximising their other income streams. The pandemic has been a catalyst for music creators to ensure that they’re collecting everything that they’re due and to learn more about publishing rights and administration. So for Songtrust, this last year has been so busy, we’ve had such a lot of exciting new clients, especially managers, songwriters and small publishing companies getting in touch. They’ve now got the bandwidth to look at what they might be missing, understand how it all works and see the level of data and transparency that we provide with our dashboard. The global coverage that we offer for royalty collection is really valuable.”
“It’s a huge challenge to make sure the right people are
remunerated” LARA BAKER SONGTRUST
Finally, what are you looking forward to at the Tech Summit? “My real passion is empowering independent songwriters and music companies, and levelling the playing field. So it will be really exciting to talk about it.”
musicweek.com
PHOTOS: Louise Haywood-Schiefer
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