Sony/ATV and Kobalt were among the winners of top prizes at last night’s ASCAP Pop Music Awards.

Sony/ATV picked up the award for Publisher of the Year while Kobalt Music Publishing America was named Publisher Administrator of the Year.

Meanwhile, Pescription Songs LLC was honoured as Independent Publisher of the Year and Max Martin was named Songwriter of the Year. The Song of the Year went to We Are Young by fun., written by Andrew Dost and Nate Ruess.

This marks the third consecutive year and sixth time that Martin has been named songwriter of the year – an ASCAP Pop Awards record. He wrote seven of 2012’s most performed ASCAP songs, including Jessie J’s Domino, Maroon 5’s One More Night, Katy Perry’s Part of Me and Taylor Swift’s We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.

Fun’s Andrew Dost and Nate Ruess accepted the pop song of the year award for We Are Young, which features fellow ASCAP songwriter Janelle Monae. The song was No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for six consecutive weeks.

“More music is being used … and the bastards aren’t paying us enough,” said ASCAP president and chairman Paul Williams on the night. “That’s not on the [cue] cards.

“There would be no music, no streaming without songwriters and composers who deserve to make a living from their art. We deserve to be compensated fairly. Damn it, we earned it. Give us our money.” [MusicWeek]