Transforming music royalties into an investment strategy is not a new idea; David Bowie even sold "Bowie Bonds" to investors in 1997, based on income generated from his back catalog. "For the music industry the age of manufacture is now over," Simon Frith claimed back in 1988, as music companies were "no longer organised around making things but depend on the creation of rights." What is new is that those rights are now much more lucrative and have attracted much bigger financiers. As opposed to physical media, which was typically purchased only once per format, listening to music on a streaming service produces a financial transaction every time a song is played, dramatically increasing the value of older music. On streaming platforms, "catalog music" (older than eighteen months) is gaining a greater share each year, from 65 percent of total listening in 2020 to 73 percent in 2023.

SEED: Potential article angle: the financialization of music catalogs as both a cultural and economic phenomenon, and how rights-based value supersedes manufactured goods.

Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, loc. 227