Deal essentially puts UMPG in control of seeking out royalties for catalog and future tunes produced for Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. TV, Lorimar Prods., Castle Rock and New Line.
That includes music from pics like the “Batman," “Harry Potter," “Matrix" and “Lord of the Rings" franchises, as well as tune-heavy TV shows like “ER," “Smallville," “Gossip Girl," “One Tree Hill," “Supernatural," “Nip/Tuck" and “Without a Trace."
The Warner Bros. catalogs were previously overseen by Warner/Chappell. Universal Music Publishing Group is part of Universal Music Group, a wholly owned subsid of Vivendi.
Warners made the switch because UMPG has built out a more advanced system to handle the worldwide registration and tracking of music copyrights and royalty administration through its Royalty Window portal.
Company reps tracks for songwriters and catalogs including U2, Elton John, 50 Cent, Mariah Carey, Coldplay, Jimi Hendrix, Prince, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Beastie Boys, Paul Simon, Christina Aguilera and Linkin Park, as well as film and TV music copyrights for NBC Universal and its various properties.
“For us, this choice was ultimately about who would provide us with the most efficient and comprehensive system for registration, collections and tracking of copyrights," said Doug Frank, prexy of music operations for Warner Bros. Entertainment. “UMPG was the company that could do so while maintaining a firm commitment to the exploitation of our properties."
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