First established as a publisher, Downtown began a concerted shift away from copyright ownership and toward artist and label services in 2019, purchasing AVL Digital Group — which included CD Baby, the distributor launched in 1998 that has distributed over 10 million tracks and, as of December 2021, paid out more than $1 billion to artists — as well as label-services distribution company FUGA in 2020, giving it a multilayered portfolio of offerings to potential clients. In a deal valued at around $350 million, Downtown sold its owned copyrights to Concord in 2021 as it doubled down on its services divisions, which includes SongTrust, a company that collects publishing royalties for established songwriters, small publishers and DIY writers.