The Rise of Music Investment

As part of two upcoming reports on music finance and investment in music rights, WIPO research shows that this transformation is also creating new opportunities for artists to monetize their creative works through IP protection while fundamentally changing how music rights are valued and traded on digital platforms.

Music Catalogue Sales

The Billion-Dollar Rights Boom

Since 2019, at least $20.4 billion has poured into music rights acquisitions involving many new private investors from outside the industry, with financial heavyweights like BlackRock, Blackstone, Apollo Global Management, and KKR leading the change. These firms are acquiring catalogues either directly through in-house funds or via specialized music IPR companies like Hipgnosis (now Recognition Music Group), Primary Wave and Litmus Music, while also collaborating with major labels in the industry to secure and manage valuable music portfolios.

Global deals are making headlines, involving many high-profile artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Pink Floyd. The WIPO research tracks music acquisition deals over time and approximates larger deals globally by looking at news coverage in music outlets such as Rolling Stone or Billboard Magazine. For the US case, the research further documents broader trends in rights trading (e.g. music right assignments and transfer to those acquiring catalogue) as well as copyright-backed financing and IP securitization (e.g. collateral use of rights as leverage in financing deals around new catalogue acquisitions). Both data sources point to an upward trend in IP-backed trade and investment in music rights, though US data might be underreported in the most recent years. Since the 2010s, the total number of deals as well as the number of rights traded and securitized during deals has skyrocketed.

News Coverage of Music Rights Deals - Note: Machine-learning approach and analysis of 650,000 news articles from six industry-specific outlets (Billboard, Consequence, Music Business Worldwide, NME, Rollingstone, Spin) identifying 2,003 relevant articles on music IP finance, reflecting a growing focus on financial transactions, catalogue sales, and rights securitization. Source: WIPO (2025), Creative Industries Insights Series. Technical Note – Get the data.

Music Rights Deals and Finance as Recorded at the U.S. Copyright Office - WIPO analysis of U.S. Copyright Office recordations of three categories of 1.5 million music works registered as: (a) Sound Recordings and Music, (b) Sound Recording and Drama, and (c) Sound Recording and Non-dramatic Text. Recordations fall into two main categories, namely (i) rights securitizations, as well as (ii) rights assignments, other recordation types except right securitizations as well as recordations with missing type information. Source: WIPO (2025), Creative Industries Insights Series. Technical Note – Get the data.

Music deals promise high returns on investment

The streaming economy has been the primary catalyst for this boom. Streaming technology and the data that goes along have made music distribution cheaper and future revenue collection more predictable, particularly for legacy artists, as compared to the pre-digital world. Moreover, streaming services require extensive licenses for publishing and recording rights, making large, successful catalogues increasingly valuable assets.

WIPO research shows that returns from music rights are particularly attractive to financial investors as they have a seemingly low correlation with cyclical trends in the overall economy, offering investors an opportunity to diversify portfolio risk and secure relatively stable income streams that yield above-average market returns.

New digital marketplaces democratize artist access to investors

While institutional investors such as hedge or pension funds dominate headlines with multi-million dollar catalogue acquisitions, new digital platforms are also democratizing access to music rights investments and trade. These platforms operate as matchmakers between those selling their music assets and those seeking investment opportunities. According to WIPO's comprehensive analysis of music investment marketplaces, four major platforms – Musicow, Royalty Exchange, SongVest, and Jukebox – now facilitate direct transactions between rights holders and investors of all sizes, collectively providing access to approximately $45 million in annual royalty streams.

For example, Musicow, an online music rights trading platform was founded in 2017 and operates exclusively in South Korea, focusing primarily on K-pop and domestic music assets. The platform allows investors to purchase shares of songs, earning proportional payouts from future royalties generated through streaming, broadcasting, and performance revenues. Its investment model is likely influenced by local financial regulations and driven by strong fan-driven demand, eventually helping to turn K-pop into a global success story.

These new digital platforms vary significantly in their offerings and pricing models. Royalty Exchange hosts over 2,100 music right assets, while Musicow, SongVest, and Jukebox still see fewer listings and attract different investor groups. Analysis shows that across all platforms, a smaller subset of high-value assets dominates revenues, consistent with the general idea that fewer superstars command a larger share of the market.

A new asset class with unique characteristics

What makes music rights particularly interesting from an investment perspective is their performance as assets. WIPO's new research analyzes daily return data from the K-pop focused platform Musicow. Importantly, it evaluates the risk-adjusted returns of music IP investments and investigates the relationship between an asset’s expected return and its exposure to systematic market risk.

Employing a standard Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), the research reveals a market beta of approximately 0.07, meaning that a 1% increase in the excess market return in the Korean stock market is associated with approximately a 0.07% increase in excess music returns. Put differently, this indicates minimal exposure of music investment to stock market fluctuations as music IP returns still move with the market but at a much lower magnitude. Moreover, the statistically significant positive Jensen’s alpha (0.06%) suggests that music IP assets can generate excess returns beyond what would be expected based on market risk alone.

Unlocking music finance

In addition, investment firms in the music right space are increasingly employing sophisticated IP securitization strategies, or use initially acquired catalogues as collateral to access additional financing for expanding their portfolios. This leveraging approach allows companies to amplify their purchasing power, where successful rights acquisitions unlock capital for further investments, accelerating the consolidation of valuable music assets under institutional ownership.

Valuation of risks in music catalogue acquisitions

Though promising, investing in music rights isn't without risks. Through extensive interviews with key stakeholders in the music finance ecosystem, the research identified several risk factors: catalogues can lose value if an artist falls from public favor due to controversy, or when shifting musical trends displace once-popular repertoire. Additionally, artists may sometimes deliberately devalue previously sold catalogues, as Taylor Swift demonstrated when she re-recorded her first six studio albums after the originals were acquired by Shamrock Capital Partners for $405 million.

The future of music rights finance

As we celebrate this year’s World IP Day, the music rights market continues to mature, both artists and investors are developing more sophisticated approaches to valuation and monetization. WIPO's forthcoming research, which analyzed over 650,000 news articles and multiple trading platforms to quantify market dynamics, indicates a growing interest in additional revenue streams beyond traditional publishing and recording rights, including royalty flows from collecting societies and even personality rights covering name, image, and likeness.

This evolution represents not just a financial shift but a fundamental rethinking of IP protection for creative works as long-term assets. For artists, these new markets offer fresh opportunities to realize immediate value from their catalogues while potentially retaining certain creative controls. For investors, music rights provide unique opportunity for portfolio diversification with the appealing combination of cultural appeal and above market financial returns—a transformation comprehensively documented in WIPO's forthcoming research on the financing and trading of music rights.

Want to find out more? Tune in to WIPO's IP Finance Dialogue on May 13. We'll be discussing ongoing research we're conducting on this topic.