Capital to be used for acceleration of proprietary technology and first of its kind direct global licensing and collection for music publishers, songwriters and spoken word authors
Global Publishing Administration, Upgraded
NEW YORK, August 24, 2023 – Digital rights management company Word Collections has secured $5 million in funding led by Metallica’s Black Squirrel Partners and an additional group of investors. The funds will be used to further accelerate global direct licensing and enhancement of Word Collections’ unique underlying proprietary technology and systems.
Word Collections delivers a unique, direct licensing business model, expertly executed, utilizing proprietary sound recording identification technology and ground-breaking income tracking systems.
Word Collections removes intermediaries; circumvents black boxes; reduces admin fees; identifies original, live, and covers of all recordings of songs; and pays songwriters, publishers, and authors more money, more quickly with unparalleled accuracy and transparency.
Word Collections was founded and launched by Jeff Price (formerly TuneCore, Audiam) in July 2020 with an initial focus on global publishing administration for comedians and other spoken word artists. A year later, in August 2021, Word Collections expanded its global publishing administration repertoire to include musical compositions. Word Collections currently administers the publishing catalogs for Metallica, Greta Van Fleet, Thomas Dolby, Songwriters Guild Of America, Gerencia360, St. Nicholas, Baroness, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, The Offspring’s Bryan “Dexter” Holland, Shriekback, DLG., Bazanji, Gomba Music, Robin Williams, George Carlin, Margaret Cho, Jerry Seinfeld, David Cross, Ron White, Bill Hicks, Bill Engvall, Billy Crystal, and numerous other songwriters, publishers, authors and spoken word comedians.
Black Squirrel was founded in 2020 by former Morgan Stanley executive Paul Donahue, Metallica and its in-house leadership team (Tony DiCioccio, Marc Reiter, and Vickie Strate), WG&S founder Eric Wasserman, and Artist Management firm Q Prime. Noted music industry veteran Rick Krim is also a partner of Black Squirrel.
Existing music catalogs represented by Word Collections:
Greta Van Fleet
Metallica
Kirk Hammett
Thomas Dolby
Baroness
Songwriters Guild of America
The Offspring’s Bryan “Dexter” Holland
Shriekback
Gomba Music
Gerencia360
St. Nicholas
DLG.
Bazanji
John Oates
Sublime with Rome
Dirtyheads
Switchfoot
Existing literary work/comedy catalogs represented by Word Collections:
Jerry Seinfeld
George Carlin
Robin Williams
Bill Hicks
Bill Engvall
Margaret Cho
Ron White
Andrew Dice Clay
Nick Di Paolo
Jim Breuer
Tommy Tiernan
Steven Wright
Louie Anderson
Sinbad
Laugh.com
Matt Ruby
David Cross
Drew Carey
Robert Schimmel
Dick Gregory
Billy Crystal
Muhammad Ali Estate
Paul Mecurio
Nick Griffin
Jake Johannsen
Corey Rodrigues
Eddie Brill
Word Collections website:
https://www.wordcollections.com/
Rights holders interested in working with Word Collections should contact: contact@wordcollections.com / (929) 274-1863