Spoken Giants and Word Collections compete to represent spoken words performers in the USA

 

 

By Emmanuel Legrand

 

Collective management organisations are like buses: You wait a long time for them to come and suddenly, two arrive at once. ​This is what's happening in the USA in the niche sector of spoken words, with the concomitant announcements of the launch of Word Collections and Spoken Giants.

 

  New York-based Word Collections is the brainchild of former Tunecore and Audiam founder Jeff Price, alongside eMusic and RoyaltyShare co-founder Bob Kohn, who have the ambition to work "for comedians and other spoken word performers to license and collect 'Literary Work' royalties earned when digital or terrestrial radio broadcast recordings of their work." The society plans to license the legally required literary work rights in spoken word comedy for broadcast radio (both digital and terrestrial), to collect royalties for the use of these works and distribute the royalties to comedians and other spoken word performers.

 

  “There has never been more money generated from the use of comedy, music and film, with less of it going back to the work’s creator, than in our current digital age,” said Price. “Comedians are the new music for tech companies. Tech has allowed comedy to be everywhere, but the necessary pipelines and infrastructure to ensure licensing and payment have not been built. Word Collections fixes that problem.”

 

Protect spoken words creators

 

  Word Collections said it currently represents over 1,300 literary works, including works by George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Roy Wood Jr., Jake Johannsen, Milton Berle, Bob Zany, Bill Dana (Jose Jimenez), Rich Vos, John Valby, Steve Sweeney among others. Price and Kohn are joined at the board of Word Collections by Norm Laviolette, the co-Founder and CEO of Boston and New York comedy institutions Improv Asylum and Laugh Boston. Eric Goldberg serves as Senior Director Operation.

 

  Meanwhile, Spoken Giants claims to be "the first royalty administration company for creators of spoken word copyrights (comedians, podcasters, authors of speeches/lectures, etc.)." It was founded by Jim King, a former executive at US rights society BMI, and 800 Pound Gorilla Records co-founders Ryan Bitzer and Damion Greiman. It declared representing "hundreds of members," including Lewis Black, Dan Cummins, Gerry Dee, Pete Holmes, Kyle Kinane, Kathleen Madigan, the Ralphie May Estate, Leanne Morgan, and Theo Von, among others.

 

  In its launch message, Nashville-based Spoken Giants stated, "Millions in royalties have been unclaimed by, or simply not paid to, spoken word creators. While rights organisations have long existed in the music industry, no such entity has existed to protect and pay spoken word creators, until now. Spoken Giants' credible, transparent, and accurate royalty management follows music precedents to correct the global financial oversights of the past, becoming the de facto collective for spoken word's future in the process."

 

Transparent representation

 

  Spoken Giants said it represents underlying composition copyrights and members "retain all rights to their work and gain access to data, analytics, deep market knowledge, copyrights administration and repertoire management across all affiliates, and carefully optimised royalty administration processing." The CMO takes a percentage of monies collected to pay for admin fees.

 

 

  "Although US copyright law protects spoken word assets, it's an area where even having a marquee name doesn't guarantee you'll be paid what you're owed​," said King, who served as​​ Senior Vice President, CIO/CTO, and Head of Business Operations and Technology at BMI​. ​"We're changing that with transparent, collective representation for all in order to strengthen the marketplace in favor of the creator. While copyright law is clear, a dedicated team and detailed technology are needed to pursue underlying composition royalties, so, our message is, 'membership is a must,' especially with the overwhelming rise of podcasting and streaming over the past decade."

 

Filling a void

 

  Spoken Giants has partnered with AI technology-driven administration platform​ ​Muserk​ to provide tracking, royalty collection and reporting, through its proprietary M-MATCH and M-PAC technology​. Muserk CEO Paul Goldman has been appointed on the board of Spoken Giants. Spoken Giants' payments are provided by Los Angeles-based Exactuals, a wholly owned subsidiary of City National Bank and the Royal Bank of Canada.

 

  "As new and emerging types of content rise to the top of the ecosystem, Muserk's mission is to be one step ahead of the tech platforms in order to administer the content owner's rights and collect their royalties with accuracy and transparency. Spoken Giants is filling a massive void in an exploding market and it's exciting to partner with them, paving new paths," said Goldman.