Downtown’s Royalties & Financial Services division has unveiled a new payments feature from Curve Royalty Systems.
The new feature gives labels, publishers and distributors the ability to manage and streamline their entire royalty payment process, including receiving funds, converting currencies, issuing payments, handling tax withholdings, collecting payee details, and more.
“As music companies and rights holders continue to grapple with complex financial workflows, Curve’s new solution provides a seamless, all-in-one experience – drastically reducing manual processes and consolidating accounting and payments into one powerful tool,” said a statement.
The feature follows on from the launch of Curve Royalty Services in June 2024, which is aimed at labels, publishers and distributors looking to outsource all or part of their royalty processes.
Curve’s payment feature launched with early adopters at the start of 2025, including Curve clients Involved (Anjunabeats), Cloudkid, Priam Media, Young Poets, and Run With Us. The latest release is designed to help music businesses of all sizes and at all stages.
“Curve's payments feature is everything you hope for when looking for a streamlined payment process – payouts are fast, the support team is extremely responsive, and our artists and writers have control over their bank details without admin for us,” said Kam Harris, senior finance manager of Involved Group. “In the short time we've used the system, Curve has delivered features based on our feedback and is continuing to evolve, making us very confident we've made the right choice.”
The feature is a culmination of our continued efforts and commitment to putting money in the pockets of artists, songwriters and copyright owners faster and with less friction
Richard Leach
Integrated directly into Curve’s accounting platform, the feature enables payments in over 35 currencies to more than 180 countries. The feature automates key tasks, including onboarding, invoice generation and tax calculations. It promises low fees and competitive exchange rates, as well as built-in compliance tools.
The feature eliminates manual processes, as well as offering additional capabilities like automatic bank validations, real-time statement tracking and local payment processing.
“This is the next obvious evolution of Curve’s offering, providing scalable, innovative solutions and processes that serve the music industry,” said Richard Leach (pictured), president of Curve and Downtown Royalties & Financial Services. “The feature is a culmination of our continued efforts and commitment to putting money in the pockets of artists, songwriters and copyright owners faster and with less friction. By streamlining this final step in the process, we’re opening up even more possibilities for efficiency and innovation.”
While Curve is currently rolling out its new payment feature directly to clients, other Downtown businesses – such as b2b distributor Fuga – will also be offering this in the future.
The Curve platform provides statements to over 70,000 rights-holders on behalf of 1,500 clients worldwide, including Domino, Epitaph, Mad Decent, Armada, Cloud9, Demon Music and Big Machine.
Curve clients collectively processed an average of 1.7 billion royalty lines per month in 2024 and over 10 billion royalty lines in the first three months of 2024 alone.
Since acquiring Curve Royalty Systems in January 2023, Downtown has worked to integrate its capabilities across its expanding suite of services – with Downtown Neighbouring Rights already fully migrated to Curve — while maintaining a strict data separation from other Downtown group businesses.
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