Royalties and rights management software doesn’t make that many headlines: it’s essential to the industry’s workings, but understandably isn’t widely understood or followed outside the teams who actually use it.

Downtown Music Holdings’ recent acquisition of Curve Royalty Systems showed the value of this technology, however. Now startup Encore Music Tech Solutions has launched to help more music companies modernise their systems.

It’s been founded by Janishia Jones, formerly of Motown, eOne and Kobalt and most recently Empire, which is the first client for her new business. It’ll be working with Empire Publishing on systems to better manage its copyrights, accounts and agreements.

“As we edge toward web3, there’s an urgency to figuring out how to define and incorporate new technology into the business so major players can be part of this era,” said Jones.

“Some of the larger music companies I have worked with were bogged down with antiquated systems. Sometimes, they haven’t done much development work since the 1990s…”