Raleigh Music and ICM Crescendo Buy Nearly All of Tim Hardin's Songs

Two music companies have bought the rights to almost the entire song catalogue of the late singer-songwriter Tim Hardin, Billboard reported on 5 November 2026.

Raleigh Music Publishing and ICM Crescendo acquired the U.S. rights and certain foreign rights to nearly the whole catalogue. The songs were sold by Hardin's heirs. Hardin died in 1980.

The collection includes "If I Were a Carpenter" and "Reason to Believe."

A song catalogue is the group of songs a writer created, and owning it means holding the publishing rights. Those are different from the recording rights, which belong to whoever made a particular version of a song. A publisher controls the song itself, deciding how it can be used and collecting the royalties, the payments that flow to songwriters and rights holders when a song is played, performed or licensed.

Raleigh Music will administer the catalogue. That means it will collect those royalties and lead the work of synchronisation licensing, the process of getting permission to place a song in a film, television show or advert. It will also handle promotion of the songs.

The deal is the first completed under a joint venture between Raleigh Music and ICM Crescendo, which the two companies set up earlier in 2026. A joint venture is a business partnership in which both sides share the work and the money.

The companies have not disclosed the terms of the acquisition, so the price and the division of income are not public.

For anyone who has never looked at the small print on a record, the deal shows how often a song's ownership sits with a company rather than the person who wrote it. Heirs can inherit those rights, and sell them, decades after a songwriter has died. Once a catalogue changes hands, the new owner decides how the songs are licensed and promoted.

Hardin's songs will now be managed by a new owner, and the people who hear them on a film soundtrack, a playlist or a radio station will still never see the paperwork behind it. The money, though, follows the rights.