John Barker<\/strong>. \u201cHe recognizes when people aren\u2019t getting paid, and he finds a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tAfter the expiration of Price\u2019s noncompete clause with Audiam, Word Collections expanded into music publishing administration, putting him in competition with his former company. And though TuneCore remains Price\u2019s most successful startup, he claims Word Collections\u2019 revenue now matches the publishing royalty volume collected by Audiam. <\/p>\n
\n\tPrice retains strong opinions on the MMA and gives no indication that he\u2019s ready to ease up on the MLC, certainly as long as publisher market share could be used to disburse black-box monies. But he claims he has dialed back his combativeness on a number of industry issues because much of what he complained about has been corrected. <\/p>\n
\n\tAnd in a number of ways, Price is no longer the outsider he claims to be. \u201cIt\u2019s an interesting paradox for me,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are directly licensed outside North America with the largest digital services in the world, which enables Word Collections to collect mechanical and performance royalties from streams. Wherever we can, we disintermediate the CMOs, the subpublishers and the black boxes in between songwriters and their money. For nondigital, we collect from 104 countries and are direct members in 40 of the music rights organizations in their countries through a joint venture with Nashville publishing administrator Bluewater Music,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe work for some of the most important artists in the world and some of the biggest artist management companies and music companies in the world. I like being on the same side of the fence as them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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![\"Jeff](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/jeff-price-1548-billboard.jpg?w=237&h=147&crop=1\")
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