The company that publishes Will Linley’s songs is Big Machine Music, and it is owned by HYBE America. The company that releases his records is Island Records, and it is owned by Universal Music Group. Those are two different rights, held by two different companies, under two different corporate parents. Nothing about the Nashville upheaval of February 2026 changed either position, and that is the finding worth writing down.
On 21 May 2025 Big Machine Music announced an exclusive publishing deal with Linley, the Cape Town-born singer-songwriter. No consideration was disclosed. No territory was stated. No term was given. Nine months later the Big Machine name split into two businesses with different owners, and the one holding Linley’s songs was the one that did not move. The full deal record, with every source and every caveat, is filed here.
What was announced in May 2025#
The announcement was short and it was specific about one thing: this was publishing. An industry rights database recorded that Linley “signed with Big Machine Music for publishing” and set out the rest of his professional structure in the same breath: managed by This Fiction, released by Island Records, booked by UTA and Wasserman Music. A trade report of the same date opened by calling him an Island Records singer-songwriter who “has signed a publishing deal with Big Machine Music”. A second archived trade item, dated the following day, describes it in its headline as an exclusive songwriting deal, with the body behind a paywall.
Big Machine Music President Mike Molinar was quoted in the announcement. “Will’s music is so joyful and addictive,” he said. “Only one song into the first time I saw his live show, it was easy to understand why legions of fans from Cape Town to Los Angeles adore him.” The publisher’s Senior Director, Timmy Haehl, was named alongside him.
The timing sat tight against a release. Linley’s single “Cinematic” came out on 16 May 2025, five days before the publishing announcement. His catalogue at that point included the EPs “Kill All My Feelings” and “Magic”, and a 2022 viral moment with “Last Call”. The industry item also credits “miss me (when you’re gone)” with topping South African radio and passing 15 million streams, which it dates to 2021; the trade report names the same song as a South African radio chart-topper without giving a year. The two accounts emphasise different songs rather than contradicting each other, but no single source establishes both the year and the streaming figure, so neither is treated here as settled.
Publishing and masters are not the same asset#
This is the distinction most coverage of a signing like this one loses, so it is worth being slow about it.
A publishing deal concerns the song: the composition, the words and melody, the thing a songwriter creates. A recording deal concerns the master: the specific recorded performance. They generate different money through different pipes, and they can sit with completely unrelated companies. Linley’s are a textbook case. Big Machine Music holds the publishing side. Island Records, described in the trade database read for this piece as a frontline record label owned by Universal Music Group and led out of New York by President Darcus Beese, is the label that releases the recordings.
What is not established is narrower and matters. No source located says whether Island Records owns Linley’s masters outright, holds them under exclusive licence, or distributes recordings owned by somebody else. Reporting on the publishing deal names Island Records as his label and stops there. This desk asserts nothing further, because there is nothing further to assert.
Nor is it established what Big Machine Music actually holds inside the publishing. A publishing deal can mean an assignment of copyright shares in the compositions, or it can mean an administration right with the copyright staying with the writer, and those are very different outcomes. The announcement uses the word “publishing” and the archived headline uses “exclusive songwriting deal”. Neither goes further. Whether Big Machine Music administers his catalogue directly in every market or licenses administration onward to sub-publishers in some of them is also unstated.
Then the name split in two#
On 12 February 2026 Scott Borchetta departed HYBE America. Under the exit terms he reacquired the Big Machine Records brand name and will relaunch it for his own future ventures. No consideration for that reacquisition was disclosed.
The important half of the announcement is what stayed. HYBE America retained the Big Machine Label Group assets, the distribution deal, the publishing company Big Machine Music, and a number of artists on the roster including Thomas Rhett, Brett Young, Midland, Justin Moore, Carly Pearce, Preston Cooper, Jackson Dean and Mae Estes. Isaac Lee, Chairman and CEO of HYBE America, said Borchetta had “made a lasting mark on the music industry with his sharp eye for talent and his unique vision”. Borchetta said he was “incredibly appreciative” of his partnership with HYBE over the previous five years.
On 17 February 2026 the rest of the structure was published. The HYBE-run Nashville operation now trades as Blue Highway Records, effective immediately, with Jake Basden appointed Chief Executive Officer and The Valory Music Co. folded into it. The same announcement confirmed that Big Machine Music remains under HYBE America and was not part of the rebrand.
So a songwriter who signed to a Nashville publisher in May 2025 now finds that the brand on his announcement belongs to somebody else, while the company on his contract belongs to a South Korean listed group. That is not a change to his deal. It is a change to what the words in the announcement point at.
The chain behind the publisher#
Big Machine Label Group was acquired by Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in 2019. The entirety of Ithaca Holdings, including BMLG and Braun’s SB Projects, was then acquired by South Korea’s HYBE in a $1.05 billion deal in 2021. That figure is the disclosed value of the Ithaca transaction and nothing else. It is not a value for Linley’s publishing deal, for the Nashville rebrand, or for Borchetta’s reacquisition of the label name, none of which has a published number attached to it.
What this means for artists#
First, ask which company, not which brand. A brand name can be sold, licensed, retired or handed back to a founder without a single contract changing. The entity on the signature page is what holds your rights. If your deal memo says “Big Machine”, it now describes two businesses with different owners. An African songwriter signing into a US or UK structure should get the legal entity name written down, not the imprint, because the imprint is the part that can walk out of the building.
Second, publishing and masters are separate negotiations and should be treated as separate decisions. Linley’s arrangement, read on the public record, is a reasonable shape: a major-adjacent Nashville publisher on the songs, a Universal frontline label on the recordings, an independent manager and two booking agents. Nobody bundled everything into one counterparty. Splitting those relationships costs you leverage in no obvious way and it keeps more than one company invested in your career.
Third, “publishing deal” is not one thing. Ask whether copyright shares are being assigned or whether the publisher is administering songs you continue to own. Ask which territories. Ask for how long, and what reverts at the end. Every one of those questions is unanswered in the public record for this signing, which is normal, and which is exactly why you need the answers in your own paperwork rather than in a press release.
Fourth, a corporate restructuring upstream is the moment to check where your royalties are actually being reported from. Nothing in the February 2026 announcements suggests any writer’s terms changed. But the administrative plumbing behind a rebranded Nashville operation is the sort of thing that generates statement errors, and an artist nine time zones away is the last person to find out.
What could not be established#
No amount, advance, royalty split or rate for the publishing deal. No territory. No term, option structure or reversion. Whether Big Machine Music took an assignment of copyright shares or an administration right. Whether administration runs direct or through sub-publishers. What rights Island Records holds in the recordings, and on what terms. No consideration for Borchetta’s reacquisition of the Big Machine Records name. No collecting-society works registration for Linley’s catalogue was searched for this piece, so no registered publisher share is asserted.
The titles of Isaac Lee at HYBE America and Jake Basden at Blue Highway Records come from trade coverage of the February 2026 announcements, not from a primary company release read from this desk. The same applies to Mike Molinar’s and Timmy Haehl’s titles at Big Machine Music. That is a weaker class of source than a filing, and it is recorded as such rather than dressed up.
