ValuePunks has extended its free catalog valuation service to music publishing, giving songwriters and composers a tool to estimate the current value of their composition catalogs.
The platform shows rights holders what a catalog is worth and what is driving that value across both recording and publishing rights. It is aimed at artists, songwriters, composers, and the independent labels and publishers who work with them.
How the publishing valuation works#
On the recording side, valuation tools have been available for some time. Publishing has lagged because composition income is split across mechanicals, performance royalties, sync, and other line items, each running through its own society or administrator with its own reporting cadence. Getting a clear read on what a catalog of works is actually worth has typically meant paying for it.
ValuePunks applies the same underlying approach it uses for recordings. Instead of a single blended multiple for the whole catalog, each revenue stream is modeled on its own terms because each earns and decays differently. The results are then summed into one figure.
For recordings, that already covers streaming, physical, direct-to-consumer, sync, neighboring rights, and licensing. Publishing adds mechanical, performance, and sync income, plus other publishing revenue lines, calculated separately rather than folded into a rough average.
Matching compositions to recordings#
Publishing adds a step that recordings did not require: matching. A user builds a catalog from an artist name, a set of tracks, or an ISWC (International Standard Musical Work Code) import. ValuePunks then maps the underlying works to every recording of them, including live versions, remixes, and covers, before running the valuation.
That matching step turns a bare list of compositions into an earnings picture, showing where the money is coming from and from which version of the work.
The service also addresses a long-standing lag in publishing. Mechanical royalties tend to reach songwriters nine to twelve months after the music actually played, with performance income arriving on a similar delay. A valuation built off those statements describes a market that has already moved on. ValuePunks draws on live consumption data, so the figure reflects what a catalog is earning now rather than what it earned almost a year ago.
What the founders say#
“Giving this away free to artists and labels was a punk thing to do, and the same logic has to hold for the people who actually wrote and composed the songs,” said Constantin Thyssen, Co-Founder and CEO of ValuePunks. “They sit right at the start of the value chain and end up the least informed about what it’s worth. So publishing gets the same treatment: a real, professional valuation, free, for the writers themselves.”
“Publishing is a matching problem before it’s a valuation problem,” added Dr. Nils Flaschel, Co-Founder, CTO and Head of Data Science at ValuePunks. “You have to connect a composition to every recording of it before you can see what it earns and only then value it, modelling mechanical, performance, and sync income individually rather than compressing them into one generic multiple. The principle is the same on both sides of the rights equation: understand the cash flows first, then value the catalog.”
Publishing valuation features#
- Catalog creation from an artist name, individual tracks, or an ISWC import
- Automatic matching of works to recordings, including live versions, remixes, and covers
- Separate valuation of mechanical, performance, sync, and other publishing income, combined into a sum-of-parts figure
- Valuations based on live consumption data rather than months-old royalty statements
- Side-by-side valuation of publishing and master rights using the same methodology
The expansion comes as catalog transactions continue at pace, multiples face more scrutiny than they did a few years ago, and administrators, societies, and DSPs (digital service providers) produce more granular data. Songwriters and composers remain the furthest from that data and the most reliant on statements that lag behind for the better part of a year.
ValuePunks provides a current revenue stream-level valuation at no cost, which can change who walks into a negotiation with an accurate picture of what is on the table. That picture has traditionally been inaccessible for most songwriters and composers.
