How Songs Make Money is a podcast series about music rights and the income streams associated with songwriting and composition, hosted by Dr Ellis Jones, Lecturer in Music and Management at the University of Leeds.

This week's episode offers an interview with William Castile, who is currently International Music Rights Manager at Phoenix Music International. In our interview, Will helped me to understand the operations of Phoenix Music, and the character of the music rights they oversee, as well as his day-to-day role in handling music rights across digital platforms. We also discussed the challenges of working with catalogue recordings, and how to keep both artists and labels in the limelight – including through digital platforms as well as more traditional media campaigns.

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Glossary

CMS (Content Management System) – An application enabling users to create, manage, and modify digital content and metadata, generally without requiring extensive technical knowledge or programming skills.

CMO (Collective Management Organisation) – An organisation responsible for licensing and tracking music rights, and distributing royalties to rightsholders.

Gramex – A Danish neighbouring rights collection society. Essentially the equivalent to the UK’s PPL in that territory.

PPL – A UK collective management organisation handling the rights of performers and recording rightsholders specifically (rather than publishing rights pertaining to musical compositions).

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References and further reading

Brøvig, R. (2023). Parody in the age of remix: mashup creativity vs. the takedown. MIT Press.

Brøvig-Hanssen, R., & Jones, E. (2023). Remix’s retreat? Content moderation, copyright law and mashup music. new media & society, 25(6), 1271-1289.

Cross, A. ‘Here’s a running list of artists who have sold some or all of their song catalogues to a new breed of company. (Updated as required)’. A Journal of Musical Things, Sep 9 2025. Available: https://www.ajournalofmusicalthings.com/heres-a-running-list-of-artists-who-have-sold-some-or-all-of-their-song-catalogues-to-a-new-breed-of-company/

Hill, S. (2022). One-Hit Wonders: An Oblique History of Popular Music. Bloomsbury.

See also the homepage for Phoenix Music International, as well as the specific site for Jet Star Records:

https://www.phoenixmusicinternational.com

https://www.jetstar.co.uk/

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All views expressed on this podcast are those of the speakers, and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Leeds, the School of Music, or any other organisation. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as business or legal advice.

How Songs Make Money is created and assembled by Ellis Jones, with contributions from students on the University of Leeds, Music Management MA course. This series is edited by Nikolai Klimanski. Our theme music is also written and produced by Nik Klimanski, and is included with permission. This series of How Songs Make Money is supported by ‘Research Boost’ funding from the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute, and enabled by Digital Education Service’s Podcasting Pilot. Special thanks to Sam Wyman for their support, as well as to Angela Hulme, Mia Windsor, Liev Cherry, and Michelle Schneider.