Ditto Music has announced the launch of a new publishing division, which means the company now offers a comprehensive range of services for artists, including distribution, label services, management, finance and publishing.
At a time when indie giants have been acquired or launched strategic partnerships with majors, Ditto is expanding its role as a key part of the independent music community.
The global music distribution and record label services company’s artist-friendly approach and technology has previously attracted the likes of Chance the Rapper, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith. Ditto now supports more than 500,000 artists and labels across the world.
Ditto Music Publishing’s accessible platform will be able to collect publishing royalties internationally and receive detailed analytics. The publishing operation has extensive deals in place covering over 150 territories and will be able to collect digital, broadcast and live royalties directly in every country where there are clients.
Ditto will also pitch user’s music for sync opportunities and feed their best tracks to major broadcasters to use under broadcaster blanket licensing agreements with collection societies. Open to Ditto Music’s distribution subscriber clients globally, the service is available for a fixed annual rate of £39/$49 in addition to a 10% commission on royalties collected and 20% commission on sync placements. In a market first, co-writers will be able to sign up to the service for free.
In addition to the subscription-based model, Ditto Plus Music Publishing will offer administration and sync services to Ditto Music’s label services clients, as well any other music companies and artists who are interested in collaborating. Initial signings to Ditto Plus Music Publishing include East/South East Asian creative collective Eastern Margins, Dimzy and other members of Brixton Drill group 67, new Folk/Psych band Rokurokob, drum & bass legend PFM, indie rock artist Lostboy and Kenyan hitmaker Chris Kaiga.
The launch of Ditto Music Publishing is a huge step for the company
Tom Weller
The new division will be headed up by Tom Weller, who joined Ditto Music in 2020 as managing director in order to launch Ditto Music Publishing. Prior to Ditto, Weller spent over 15 years working at UK collection societies MCPS and PRS For Music in a wide variety of roles encompassing sync, digital licensing, production music, business development, strategy and, finally, as senior publisher relationship manager, responsible for the societies’ operational relationship with Universal Music Publishing, Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell and BMG.
Tom Weller said: “The launch of Ditto Music Publishing is a huge step for the company and means we’re close to being able to offer a comprehensive suite of services to our clients. At Ditto we’re proud of the accessibility and simplicity of our platform, and our publishing offering is a continuation of that – it will help demystify a complicated area of the music business and make it easy and cost effective for artists and songwriters to collect all of the royalties they’re due.”
Ditto Music CEO Lee Parsons added: “The launch of Ditto Music Publishing means artists and songwriters will have the global reach of a major publisher while retaining complete control of their rights and their creative vision. Tom and the team will help them capitalise on the power of independence so they can reach new audiences, create life-long fans and, most importantly, make sure they get paid.”
Ditto Music Publishing is also primed to complement other on-going projects, such as the recently launched NFT exchange Opulous, with other initiatives soon to be announced.
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