Peermusic Buys Sydney Publisher 120 Publishing and Names Karen Hamilton Managing Director

Music publisher Peermusic has acquired 120 Publishing, a Sydney-based company, the two businesses confirmed on 28 October 2026. As part of the deal, 120 Publishing's general manager, Karen Hamilton, has been appointed managing director of Peermusic Australia.

Music publishers look after songs rather than recordings. They hold or manage the copyrights in the songs themselves, license them for use in films, adverts and streaming, and collect the royalties that follow. Music Business Worldwide reported that the deal gives Peermusic the publishing rights to about 5,000 works from 120 Publishing, along with roughly 120,000 administered copyrights. Administered copyrights are songs the company does not own outright but handles on the owners' behalf, collecting payments and handling licensing in return for a fee.

The purchase price and other financial terms were not disclosed.

120 Publishing began in 2009, founded by Tim McGee for Ministry of Sound Australia. That parent business now operates as TMRW Music. Hamilton joined in 2011 to run the company, and she brings more than 30 years of experience across A&R (the work of finding and developing artists and songs), copyright, royalties and licensing.

Her move into the top job at Peermusic Australia means the Sydney team and its catalogue now sit inside a larger publisher. For the songwriters whose works are included, the practical questions concern who collects their royalties and who licenses their songs from here on. Those details were not set out in the announcement, and nothing has been said about changes to staff or offices.

Royalties are the money songwriters earn each time a song is played publicly, streamed, performed live or used in another production. A publisher's catalogue, the full set of songs it manages, is one of the main assets in this part of the industry. Deals that move catalogues between companies are a regular feature of the business, and this one adds a large Australian catalogue to Peermusic's holdings.

Hamilton's appointment and the acquisition were announced together, so the two stories point the same way. The business changes hands, and the person who ran it for more than a decade takes on a wider role across the country.