Cassadee Pope, who last month was crowned winner of the TV show The Voice, has signed with the Republic Nashville label that's part of the Big Machine Label Group. Pope, who is migrating to a more country sound from her rock background, told The Hollywood Reporter she has a number of songs ready to record but isn't sure there's a single among them.

"Cassadee was a standout from day one and once she delivered her incredible version of Miranda Lambert’s “Over You,” I started working over my NY label partner Monte Lipman (CEO of Republic Records) to try to convince him that Cassadee belonged in Nashville,” said Big Machine Label Group President Scott Borchetta. “Each week Cassadee continued to knock down big Country songs by Rascal Flatts, Keith Urban and Faith Hill, and after she won we were THRILLED to find out that Cassadee was on the same page with us and wanted to come to Nashville."

Warner Music Nashville has named Wayne Leeloy its senior director of digital marketing.

Eric Parker and musicrow.com have the story here.

The reorganization of Warner Music Group — under the umbrella of which operates Warner Music Nashville — is unlikely to affect local operations or lead to layoffs, according to various sources.

Sarah Skates and MusicRow.com have the story here.

Courthouse News has the lowdown on a lawsuit against SESAC brought on behalf of thousands of radio stations who say the performing-rights organization has created a quasi-monopoly that has driven up the price of playing songs of all kinds of genres. Attorneys want a judge to rule that SESAC is violating antitrust laws and want it barred from charging "supracompetitive prices." PRO competitors ASCAP and BMI have been hit with similar orders.

"SESAC's creation of a bottleneck to public-performance-right licenses for the works in its repertory contributes no efficiency benefits of any kind," the committee claims. "Instead, SESAC extracts monopoly rents for copyrighted music that would otherwise be available at competitive rates."

MusicRow's Sarah Skates has the scoop on the departure from Universal Music Nashville of General Manager Ken Robold and Senior Vice President Beverly Keel. The moves come shortly after UMG acquired EMI's record music division. Robold had spent more than two decades at the label group, while Keel had joined about two years, when she took a leave from teaching music industry courses at Middle Tennessee State University.

More staff and artist changes are expected as UMG integrates EMI’s operations including Capitol Records Nashville. This ongoing process will likely take place in the coming weeks, and possibly into the new year.

Two quick hits from the music biz: First, the record label founded by Toby Keith three years ago has extended its joint venture with Universal Records South. Show Dog-Universal will continue to be run by Mark Wright. And secondly, former American Idol contestant Kellie Picker has founded a new label home at Black River Entertainment after spending six years at 19/BNA Records. Black River CEO Gordon Kerr says Pickler is "rooted in and committed to country music and she's genuine. How can you ask for more than that?"

Big Machine Records has teamed up with ABC to release songs from the network's much-awaited Nashville series, which premieres Oct. 10. At least one track will be released via iTunes per episode, and Big Machine boss Scott Borchetta says a full-fledged soundtrack album is likely to follow in early 2013.

Borchetta told Billboard.biz that when ABC visited Nashville in April with the pilot, at the beginning of the screening he was saying, "this is not our thing." Halfway through it became, "we could do this."

"We've been frustrated in the past trying to have a real partnership -- music was an afterthought and didn't come from the same creative starting point," Borchetta says. "We wanted to have an opportunity to work with something in the early stages to tie music into the psychological elements on the screen and make an emotional connection (with consumers). This was the right one to jump in on."

The team at Curb Records has responded to this week's Appeals Court ruling that Tim McGraw was OK to sign earlier this year with rival label Big Machine Records. Curb execs say they respectfully disagree with the court and will look into an appeal at the Tennessee Supreme Court. They also say they're fighting for a bigger cause.

Those principles include our belief that contracts must be enforced as written, and in particular that exclusive personal services agreements with individuals, such as Mr. McGraw, who possess unique and extraordinary talent, must be subject to enforcement by injunctive relief. This is particularly true in the music industry, where companies invest millions of dollars based on the enforceability of such exclusivity provisions. As such, the principles involved are material not just to Curb Records, but to the viability of the music industry in Tennessee as a whole, as well as all other industries that contract with such unique and extraordinary talents.