9 Questions with Michael Lau of Round Hill Music: Rethinking Publishing for The Beatles & Beyond

Getting creative means shaking things up. That’s a fact not just for songwriters, but for publishers too.

One publishing company that’s proven unafraid to make some waves is Round Hill Music (RHM). Born in New York City in 2011, RHM is aiming to be the right size with the right mindset – introducing fresh methods of doing business in a sector better known for sticking with tradition.

Self-described as both a full-service music publisher and music rights investment firm, RHM appears to be proving its approach to the right kind of people: its 6,000+ song catalog includes works by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Bon Jovi, Steve Perry, Louis Armstrong, Tina Turner, Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Def Leppard, Carrie Underwood, Backstreet Boys, and Katy Perry.

While blue-chip clients abound, RHM is not about keeping them comfy with tried-and-true strategies. Instead this mid-level publisher is intent on amping up the accessibility level to songs and singers that had previously been perceived as untouchable. In the process, they’re increasing opportunities for the many rising artists and songwriters that they represent, such as American Authors and the just-added NYC four-piece Graveyard Lovers.

Michael Lau is Chief Operating Officer of Round Hill Music.

The company’s sharp COO is Michael Lau, whose origins as a composer led to being a music supervisor, and then a seven-year tenure at Warner/Chappell music. With RHM’s three-year anniversary drawing near, Lau explained how this upstart publisher’s workflow is coming clearly into focus.

You described Round Hill to me as a mid-level publishing company. How do you define mid-level, and why are there so few of these types of publishers currently operating?

A mid-level publishing company is between a major, such as Warner/Chappell Music or Sony ATV and the little mom and pop publishers who one a single or a small handful of catalogs, which are usually family owned and run and or administered by the mid-level or majors. The mid-level has a number of catalogs, signs a small handful of new/developing artists/writers, and usually manages its own administration. The majors have hundreds of thousands of copyrights, which the mid-level only has a few to the lower tens of thousands.

One reason why the mid-level publishing company playing field has become a lot smaller over the years is due to, as one example, BMG Rights Management purchasing many of the mid-level companies that were around for years (i.e. Chrysalis Music, Evergreen Copyrights, Cherry Lane, etc.)

And one additional note, the major playing field has also become small with the Sony ATV acquisition of EMI Music Publishing.

What are the unique opportunities that a mid-level publisher has in today’s music business? And why take on the challenge of starting a new publishing company, instead of working with one of the existing ones?

As the publishing world is shrinking, there are more and more writers (and their works) being managed by the majors. Usually as they acquire, they do not scale up their staff to deal with the additional catalogs and or only keep the preexisting staff from the acquired company for only a short transition period.

The writers are aware that this is happening and have felt it’s negative results, which is less of a hands-on experience. Subsequently when the writers have the opportunity to leave their existing deals and move their catalogs at the end of their deals, they are look for new homes.

This is where the opportunity is. We are in the perfect position to offer these writers and their catalogs a new home, where they will once again get the attention they are so used to and deserve.

The challenge of the calling ties into my last comment: these writers and catalogs need new homes where they will be taken care of, nurtured and to add value where and when they can in a forward-thinking, proactive approach. I’m not saying that the majors do not do this. I know my friends and former colleagues do an amazing job at this, but the issue is that there are so many writers and songs and so few of them.

“I Saw Her Standing There” will be easier to access via RHM.

Round Hill has made some blue chip acquisitions, most notably acquiring the rights to several Beatles songs including “I Saw Her Standing There” and “She Loves You”. Why do classic songs by the Beatles and other artists wind up becoming under-utilized? How is Round Hill changing that?

In the case of the Beatles songs and the few hundred other songs that were acquired in that catalog purchase such as a song like “Come Go With Me” (Del-Vikings) the company did not manage the catalog other than collect royalties. There was no creative staff, no website, no contact information floating out on the Internet. There was no proactive approach to marketing the catalog, nor presence to remind music users that those songs exist.

When we started to spread the word that we had the catalog and those songs, we were hearing stories such as “…I’ve tried many times to license the song, but didn’t know who to contact, or never received a response…” This is just one example of an old venerable publishing company that was family-run that could not keep up with the changing time.

Another example is at the majors, they have so many catalogs it’s hard to know what you have. The staff with years of experience at those companies, who know those catalogs intimately, are no longer there. So you have new creative staff come in and they struggle to ramp up and learn the catalog.

What usually happens in this case is that they initially concentrate on the money-making catalogs. They do get around to broadening their awareness, but it takes time and, unfortunately, never complete.

I can give you one personal example:  I was at Warner/Chappell Music for over seven years. It took me five years to realize that WCM had many works written by Ray Charles. This was not a shortcoming on my part, it was due to the vast number of copyrights and the lack of tools to be able to search, making it almost impossible to stumble across his songs. I only learned of his catalog, not by someone at WCM, but from a good friend who had his masters at the sister label at WMG.

Round Hill changes this by making sure the staff knows what catalogs and songs it has. When a catalog is purchased or a new writer is signed, the entire company gets involved…from the creative to the royalties departments. Prior to purchasing a catalog we create playlists and distribute them to the entire staff, whereby at the time of closing on the acquisition, we all know what’s there, how we are going to work with it, the marketing approach, how each song will work for synch, all the way to songs being tagged with creative metadata in our propriety pitch system. We do all the mining, which is frankly part of our due diligence, before the transaction, so we’re ready from day one.

What are some examples of some Beatles usages that you helped to clear at Round Hill?

Some of the Beatles uses the team at Round Hill has successfully secured are: “From Me To You” used in a Telus Communications commercial, and “I Wanna Be Your Man” used in an episode of True Blood. There are others, but these are the highlights.

You said just now that the big part of publishing today is knowing what you have, and knowing it well enough so you can take advantage of the opportunities that are out there. How does this apply not just to famous songs, but also to emerging artists and rights holders?

To be honest, every song in a catalog is important. Unless there is a specific call for a well-known song for either a synch use or for another artist to cover, it is fair game as long as the song fits the creative specs.

My team at RHM (Mallory Zumbach, Tami Lester and Steve Nalbert) has a wonderful track record in finding those diamonds in the rough songs and creating opportunities for them. It’s great to license or get a cut for a song that is already known, but the real fun and — from my perspective — excitement is to make money for a song that has previously made very little to none.

NYC’s Graveyard Lovers are the newest addition to the RHM roster.

What are some of the distinct ways that Round Hill is supporting the emerging artists on your roster? Why take these extra steps?

We have a PR company with two charges as it’s related to RHM, one to promote RHM and its business, and two to promote its writers and artists. We take the extra steps because one, the artists might not get this attention at their label, if they even have one, and two from a songwriter standpoint, there’s usually no one else to promote their successes and activities.

What would you say is most important to the music supervisors that you are working with today?

From being a music supervisor the first half of my career and the many conversations I’ve had with the top ones in their field today, is that you need to know what you have.

Only send music that is relevant to the specific need at the time and send your best songs. It’s better to send the best 10 songs rather than 100 remote possibilities that are on the fringe of the creative brief. Also, make sure all the audio files are tagged with contact information, composers, etc… Make sure you know your rights to what you are sending and that you convey that to them.

Besides music supervisors for visual media, who are some of the other types of people and companies that Round Hill interfaces with to leverage your catalog? Which markets are growing, and which ones are shrinking?

Obviously visual media — television, film, and commercials — is the largest segment, but there are many others where you can find opportunities.

We work with video game companies, directly with brands, greeting cards, t-shirts, toys, and so on. The playing field is huge. And of course there still is a huge market for purchasing music itself, whether physical or digital. I feel they are all growing, transitioning or maintaining. It’s hard to say, which are shrinking. There might be a decline, but fortunately someone eventually comes up with a brilliant idea to reinvent and that niche rebounds.

You currently have 6,000 songs in the Round Hill catalog. Why is that a good number? At what pace want that collection to grow?

It’s a good number based our size, how long the company has been in existence, knowing what we have and where we want to go.

There is no perfect, right number or formula, it’s all about how you manage what you have. We are always looking at new catalogs to acquire and will most likely acquire a few more over the next six to nine months, in the short term. There is no specific type that we identify as ideal to bring in — we look for iconic catalogs where we feel we can create and add value to.

As we follow the process I mentioned earlier for each one of the catalogs, RHM positions itself for success. So no matter if it’s a 50- to-3,000 song catalog, it’s easily managed.

— David Weiss

Please note: When you buy products through links on this page, we may earn an affiliate commission.