(CelebrityAccess) – The Hipgnosis Songs Fund has announced two new deals to help it better manage the catalogs of song rights it has acquired in recent years, with a new administration partnership with the French collecting society, The Society of Authors, Composers, and Publishers of Music (SACEM) and a sub-publishing arrangement with Peermusic.
SACEM will manage and process all of the digital royalties generated by the Hipgnosis catalogs in several markets, but with a focus on the UK and the European Union (EU). SACEM already handles that process for the Anglo-American catalogs of several publishers – including Universal Music Publishing (UMP) and The Independent Music Publishers e-Licensing (IMPEL) society.
SACEM CEO Cécile Rap-Veber says: “Hipgnosis will benefit from SACEM’s negotiation with multi-territorial [streaming services], and technological expertise, especially in the field of data management with its innovative URights platform, which will give Hipgnosis full visibility, in real-time, on the revenues generated by its catalogs”.
Peermusic will act as a sub-publisher for Hipgnosis in the rest of the world, excluding the US, handling royalty administration and sync opportunities. In the US, Hipgnosis has its own operation for such things – known as the Hipgnosis Songs Group – which evolved out of Big Deal Music, the publishing business it acquired back in 2020.
Commenting on the new deals – and how they will reduce some of the complexities involved in processing royalties due to the Hipgnosis catalogs – the company’s founder and CEO Merck Mercuriadis says that the combination of SACEM, Peermusic, and the Hipgnosis Songs Group “provides us with global coverage from best in class operators with a focus on collecting more, collecting it faster and getting it paid through faster”.
The new partnerships will apply to 36 of the catalogs Hipgnosis controls, including music from Neil Young, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Chrissie Hynde, and Jack Antonoff, extending to other catalogs in the future.
