Joint venture with Artist Legacy Group will provide new licensing and merchandising services.

Sony Music Entertainment and Artist Legacy Group have launched a new joint venture to offer brand management services, initially on artist estates.

Operating under the ALG name, the new joint venture will provide artist and estate brand management services to Legacy Recordings, SME's catalog music division, and other front line SME labels, while also remaining open to opportunities outside the SME eco-system.

ALG principals Ashley Austin and Scott Austin will provide their expertise to the joint venture, which will operate under SME's Commercial Music Group, with SME's interest in the venture being managed by Adam Block, president of Legacy Recordings.

The venture will engage in all business aspects of artist brand management including licensing, branding strategy and merchandising focusing initially on artist estates.

ALG will also work with Arcade, SME's in-house creative agency, and Threadshop, SME's in-house merchandising company, to provide access to a variety of services as an extension of its core business.

Services provided by ALG will include sourcing and securing merchandising opportunities, social media management, sourcing and securing print (book, magazines and posters) and/or film opportunities (such as biopics) and more.

Current ALG clients include music photographer Mick Rock, the estate of The Who's drummer Keith Moon and the iconic New York music venue Max's Kansas City.

"The venture is particularly exciting for Legacy because it will allow us to offer easy access to a broader, more mutually beneficial menu of services to our artists," says Block. "Legacy has spent the last 25 years refining our skills at developing and reinforcing the ideas of our artists and their music and video content with the limited rights most of our contracts allow. Combining our experience with ALG's growing expertise in the broader brand management space, as well as our in-house merch company, Threadshop, and our creative agency, Arcade, we see a terrific opportunity to create even greater awareness and opportunities for the artists and estates we'll work with."