Curve Royalty Systems Launches New Payments Feature, Revolutionizing Royalty Accounting Payments 13 May 2025
All-in-one Royalty Accounting and Payments Platform Supports Payees across 180+ Countries
Downtown’s Royalties & Financial Services division today announced the launch of a powerful 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 — from receiving funds and converting currencies to 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. The feature follows on from the launch of Curve Royalty Services in June 2024, a flexible service offering for 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. Curve’s latest release demonstrates its effectiveness and potential 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. 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.” said Kam Harris, Senior Finance Manager of Involved Group. “We've used other systems which had high promises but ended up feeling clunky and difficult. Curve lived up to the potential of getting back hours of time, being intuitive to use and offering real value. If you use Curve, and process lots of payments come royalty statement time, or have self-billing, it's a no-brainer. Highly recommend it.”
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, offering low fees, competitive exchange rates, and built-in compliance tools.
Designed for speed and simplicity, this solution eliminates manual processes, empowering finance teams and creators to manage royalties with speed, security, and scalability. With additional capabilities like automatic bank validations, real-time statement tracking, and local payment processing, music companies can stay agile, improve productivity, and remain competitive in an increasingly global market.
This is the next obvious evolution of Curve’s offering, providing scalable, innovative solutions and processes that serve the music industry ,” said Richard Leach, 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.”
Whilst 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, fully integrating into existing workflows and powered by Curve’s technology.
The award-winning Curve platform, which provides statements to over 70,000 rights holders on behalf of 1500 clients worldwide, including Domino, Epitaph, Mad Decent, Armada, Cloud9, Demon Music, and Big Machine, has ensured transparent reporting and efficient payments for clients since its inception in 2017. 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 seamlessly integrate Curve’s capabilities across its expanding suite of services - with Downtown Neighbouring Rights already fully migrated to Curve — while maintaining Curve’s strict data separation from other Downtown group businesses; a foundational aspect of Curve’s trust with clients.
The introduction of Curve’s new payments feature is the latest step in Downtown’s ongoing commitment to providing best-in-class services and market-leading solutions to the global music industry. The feature rounds out Downtown Music’s integrated, end-to-end ecosystem, empowering creators and businesses to focus on their craft while minimizing operational and administrative pain points.
To learn more about the new payments functionality, visit Curve’s Payments Feature Page.
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THE HEADLINES
Data (Use and Access) Bill passes without amendment (see News)
Has the time finally come for metered music experiences? (see Opinion)
What moves the needle for artists in 2025? (see Features)
Tributes pour in for Brian Wilson (see News, Features, Showbiz&News)
These touts made millions - and claimed staff at big ticketing firms helped (see Features)
Billboard names its Independent Power Players (see Features)
New report highlights emergence of a two-tier music streaming market favouring scale over diversity and flags need for urgent action (see Reports)
Ministers’ silence on threats to our creatives is bewildering (see News)
Sony Music Publishing set to acquire Hipgnosis Songs Group (see Business)
Manchester's Co-op Live to host the BRIT Awards (see News)
Elliot Grainge has breathed new life into Atlantic Records (see Features)
BPI CEO addressed the SXSW London conference (see News)
Elton John slams Labour over the AI act (see Opinion)
Jim King's 30-year reign (see Features)
TikTok launches TikTok for Artists (see Digital)
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy talks AI policies and regulation (see News)
A study from ICMP on music publishing revenues shows that digital now dominates (see Reports)
Majors in talks to license music to AI firms Udio, Suno (see News)
Taylor Swift has bought back rights to her master recordings, a win for her but also a potentially major win for the industry (see Features)
UK music business power players: 2025 list revealed (see Reports)