Apple Music Strengthens Publishing Division With Head of Creative Services Hire

By Shirley Halperin

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Apple Music is continuing to build out its publishing division, recently hiring Lindsay Rothschild as Head of Creative Services, Music Publishing, for North America, Variety has learned. Rothschild arrives from Google where she led songwriter and publisher relations for as well as music publishing business development for YouTube and Play.

Her new position marks ’s second hire on the Music Publishing Creative Services team, though the position had been green-lit long before Rothschild’s April 29 start date.

It also comes at a time of strain for songwriter relations as they pertain to tech companies. In recent months, Spotify has come under vocal criticism of its attempt appeal a 2018 decision by the Copyright Royalty Board to raise the rate paid to songwriters by 44% over the next five years. Amazon, Google and SiriusXM/Pandora joined in the battle, but Apple sat it out, winning the PR war .

Rothschild will be tasked with building strong working relationships with the songwriter community, in addition to key creatives and A&R on the publishing side of the music industry. The position also entails being able to guide rights-holders through the Apple ecosystem and identify areas of incremental value within their musical compositions — for instance Apple-developed software like GarageBand and Logic.

The Los Angeles native is described as having a “great track record,” having worked at Disney Music Group and Warner/Chappell prior to her four-year run at Google, and being able to “speak and understand the language of songwriters.”