Downtown Music Launches Downtown Royalties & Financial Services Division

14 May 2024 - Press release

Downtown Music (Downtown), the world's leading independent service provider to the global music industry, has today announced the launch of the Downtown Royalties & Financial Services Division (DR&FS) to make royalty services, accounting, and payments faster and simpler across rights for its more than 5,000 business clients and 4 million artist relations.

With the introduction of Downtown Royalties and Financial Services, Downtown continues to drive technological innovation across the music industry while strengthening its leadership role in music rights management. This initiative expands on the company’s efforts to expand its royalty and financial services for its artists, labels, and businesses following its acquisition of Curve Royalty Systems, the award-winning royalty processing platform, in January 2023.

To lead this new division, which breaks down into three core activities - royalty processing (powered by the Curve Platform), royalty accounting services, and payments - Downtown is pleased to announce the appointment of Tom Allen, founder of Curve, as President of Downtown Royalties & Financial Services. In this capacity, Allen will report to Downtown Music's chief business officer, David Driessen. Richard Leach, currently general manager at Curve, will, in his elevated capacity as managing director of Curve, oversee the day-to-day management of the Curve Platform, reporting to Allen.

Through Curve, Downtown Royalties & Financial Services already supports more than 1,000 labels and publishers worldwide, including Domino, Defected, Epitaph, Mad Decent, Armada, Cloud9, Demon Music and Big Machine, among many others. By providing instant access to statement balances and detailed analytics broken down by territory, usage type, and income source, clients enjoy greater insight and transparency into their revenue streams, helping them make informed decisions to optimize their financial outcomes in the ever-evolving music landscape.

“Downtown Royalties and Financial Services is both a commitment to the expansion of our core offering into deeper services and solving payment problems to our customers, and to simplifying the financial complexities that artists and businesses across the industry face daily,” said David Driessen, Chief Business Officer of Downtown Music. “Tom's leadership at Curve has already elevated the industry standard for royalty management and financial services. His expertise will be crucial as he guides this new division at Downtown.”

“In 2023 alone, Curve clients generated hundreds of billions of streams across major streaming platforms,” said Downtown Royalties and Financial Services President, Tom Allen. “We're committed to expanding our full services offering to report and pay their earnings efficiently, ensuring every stream is accounted for. Downtown Royalties and Financial Services is the next phase of our vision, with our services and payments divisions, and even though I will continue to oversee Curve, it feels great to be able to leave the day-to-day management and growth of the platform in Richard’s hands.”