The Music Majors within the Digital Music Worlds – Music Enterprise Analysis

The Music Majors within the Digital Music Worlds – Music Enterprise Analysis

by | Dec 7, 2025 | Entertainment Law, Music Business, Podcast News


What position do main music labels play in creating digital music avatars? Are Common, Sony and Warner spearheading innovation by creating their very own AI musicians, or are they merely responding to present traits and technological developments? These questions will probably be answered partially 5 of the “Digital Music Worlds” sequence.

Digital Music Worlds – Half 5: The Music Majors within the Digital Music Worlds

Warner Music Group: Whet Information, Genuine Artists, Noonoouri

The main music labels, Common, Sony and Warner, haven’t been pioneers within the area of digital and, particularly, AI-generated artists. In July 2021, Warner Music Group’s Chinese language sub-label, Whet Information, signed the digital artist Ha Jiang. At that time, the avatar was already an influential influencer who was additionally positioned as a rap musician.[1] The Whet/Warner deal aimed to determine the digital artist as a music star, however this evidently failed. 4 years later, Ha Jiang has nearly disappeared from the web. Whet Information’ YouTube channel has solely 26 movies and three,420 subscribers, and has not been up to date for 3 years. The one content material that includes Ha Jiang is a “Drunk Groove” remix by the blue-haired digital singer, which has had a modest 109,637 views in 4 years.[2]

Additional monetary involvement within the digital music world additionally seems to be unsustainable for Warner. In June 2022, Warner Music Group led an funding consortium that offered thousands and thousands of US {dollars} in funding to “Genuine Artists”, an AI firm based by Chris McGarry in San Francisco in 2019.[3] The consequence was the event of twelve prototypes of supernatural digital artist avatars, starting from cyborgs to iguana DJs, which had been featured on the in-house label “WharpSound”.[4] Nonetheless, the provide, which was apparently aimed primarily on the gaming group, didn’t appear to have met with the required response. Chris McGarry’s final interview for the New Yorker dates from February 2023 and asks whether or not AI steals from artists.[5] After that, issues went quiet round “Genuine Artists” and its founder. The homepage “authentic-artists.ai” is simply as unavailable because the “WharpSound” label’s webpage. Warner will in all probability have already written off its funding in “Genuine Artists”.

In September 2023, Warner Music Germany signed a brand new music avatar. Style influencer Noonoouri, who has modelled for manufacturers equivalent to Dior, Lacoste, Balenciaga, Valentino and Versace, and whose followers embody Kim Kardashian, Naomi Campbell and Lewis Hamilton,[6] recorded the tune “Dominoes” with German DJ Alle Farben for Warner. Whereas Noonoouri’s voice is AI-generated, similar to her digital look, the lyrics of the tune had been contributed by a collective of songwriters.[7]

Behind Noonoouri is Joerg Zuber, who has been working the artistic company Joerg Zuber Studio in Munich for greater than 20 years. Zuber had the thought of making a digital influencer and launching her available on the market. Zuber’s idea was initially met with rejection, so he determined to take a danger and launched the computer-generated avatar in February 2018 with none monetary backing. However when celebrities equivalent to Naomi Campbell and Marc Jacobs grew to become followers and well-known trend manufacturers found Noonoouri, the success was unstoppable.[8] Noonoouri now has round 500,000 followers on Instagram,[9] and the music video for “Dominoes” has been considered round 300,000 occasions (as of September 2025).[10] Following the success of the debut album, Warner 2024 teamed up with Enisa Nikaj, a New Yorker of Albanian descent who’s signed to the Atlantic sub-label, on the tune challenge “Up All Nite” with Noonoouri. Nonetheless, “Up All Nite” was unable to match the success of the debut single. With just below 394,000 performs on Spotify[11] and round 180,000 views on YouTube,[12] it lags far behind “Dominoes”. However, one other try was made in Could 2025 to determine Noonoouri as a pop star with the discharge of the third single, ‘Launch Me’. For this single, the avatar collaborated with twin brothers Harvey Kitt and Max Luca Mills, who got here second as duo Max and Harvey within the TV expertise present “The X Issue: Celeb”.[13] Nonetheless, success has been modest up to now. The YouTube video has had round 273,500 views within the first 4 months[14] and ‘Launch Me’ has been performed simply over 292,500 occasions on Spotify.[15] Which means Noonoouri continues to be a great distance from reaching the heights of human pop stars and subsequently stays primarily a profitable trend influencer.

Common Music Group: Kingship, FN Mekka, Genies Inc.

Common Music Group additionally entered the digital pop star enterprise in 2021. 5 months after Warner Music Group, Common’s sub-label “10:22PM” introduced the formation of the digital band Kingship.[16] The “band members” had been 4 characters from the profitable NFT challenge “Bored Ape Yacht Membership”, which continued with the “Mutant Ape Yacht Membership” and one other 20,000 ape NFTs in any case 10,000 NFTs of the long-lasting apes had been offered. Common, or “10:22PM”, hoped to capitalise on the recognition of the NFT apes and licensed the NFT characters to type a band.[17] In Could 2022, Common offered 5,000 NFT key playing cards, permitting consumers to entry the band’s digital world and different tokenised merchandise and experiences, because the cult monkeys had been set to make their debut within the metaverse. Initially priced at 0.19 Ether (roughly US $286), the NFTs had been traded on the Ethereum blockchain. By the tip of July 2022, all NFT playing cards had been offered, producing US $1.43 million in income for Common.[18]

What reads like the start of successful story led to catastrophe. On the finish of December 2024, Common deactivated all the monkey band’s social media accounts and deleted all of their YouTube and Discord channels.[19] What had occurred? Again in November 2023, the creator of Kingship, Celine Joshua, had left the “10:22PM” label for BMG Rights Administration.[20] By this level, the NFT increase had was a speculative bubble, with 95 per cent of NFT collections proving to be nugatory. Greater than 23 million NFT traders had misplaced their cash.[21] Common was pressured to take motion to keep away from being dragged right into a maelstrom of lawsuits alleging investor fraud. The value of NFTs from the “Bored Ape Yacht Membership” had plummeted, prompting traders to sue Yuga Labs, the producer of the NFT apes, in addition to celebrities equivalent to Justin Bieber, Madonna, Snoop Dogg, Publish Malone and Serena Williams, and corporations equivalent to Adidas and the public sale home Sotheby’s. The plaintiffs accused the defendants of artificially inflating the worth of NFTs via their promoting of the ‘Bored Ape Yacht Membership’ to use small traders.[22] Common was not concerned within the lawsuit, however the challenge with the digital monkey avatars, which had began so promisingly, failed miserably on account of a misjudgement of the NFT market.

An excellent greater catastrophe was Common’s US subsidiary Capitol Information’ signing of “robotic rapper” FN Mekka in August 2021. Referring to the controversial avatar’s ten million TikTok followers, Capitol Information and FN Mekka’s developer, Manufacturing facility New, struck a deal to supply the only “Florida Water”. The tune, which was produced by a group led by Travis Scott, was created in collaboration with US rapper Guna {and professional} Fortnite gamer Clix.[23] This provoked a storm of indignation, particularly among the many Black group in america. The civil rights group Trade Blackout strongly criticised Capitol’s collaboration with Manufacturing facility New: “[W]e discover fault within the lack of information in how offensive this caricature [Anm. FN Mekka] is. It’s a direct insult to the Black group and our tradition. An amalgamation of gross stereotypes, appropriative mannerisms that derive from Black artists, full with slurs infused in lyrics.”[24] After solely two weeks of collaboration, Capitol Information was pressured to cancel the FN Mekka deal on account of huge public protests and apologise to the Black group: “We provide our deepest apologies to the Black group for our insensitivity in signing this challenge with out asking sufficient questions on fairness and the artistic course of behind it.”[25] Shortly after this press launch, the tune “Florida Water” was faraway from all streaming platforms.

In 2021, Common not solely tried to capitalise on the NFT and TikTok increase but in addition wished to determine a presence in Net 3.0 and, above all, in Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse. To this finish, Common entered a partnership with Los Angeles-based tech firm Genies Inc.,[26] which describes itself as a pacesetter within the creation of avatars for the metaverse.[27] Months earlier, Warner Music Group had already introduced its collaboration with Genies.[28]

Genies Inc. was based in 2017 by Akash Nigam and Evan Rosenbaum, who had beforehand met as faculty college students on the College of Michigan and launched the photo-sharing app Mix. As Mix’s success was modest, Nigam and Rosenbaum turned their consideration to creating personalised avatars utilizing AI.[29] This concept was very effectively acquired, and the primary traders got here ahead, offering a complete of US$ 40 million in enterprise capital between 2017 and 2019.[30] Armed with recent capital, the Genies founders developed a software program improvement package (SDK) that enabled customers to create their very own avatars on cell gadgets. Nonetheless, Genies’ actual breakthrough got here after they began creating avatars for celebrities, together with many pop stars trying to promote their model in Net 3 purposes and, above all, within the metaverse. The primary big-name stars to have avatars created by Genies had been Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes. Genies additionally started providing NFTs for star avatar equipment and different branded merchandise on the Dapper Labs blockchain. Seeing this success, Warner and Common now wished to fee avatars for his or her stars as effectively.[31]

This naturally attracted the eye of further traders, and in Could 2021, San Francisco-based enterprise capital agency BOND, along with an funding consortium, invested US $65 million in Genies, and BOND co-founder Mary Meeker joined the corporate’s government board.[32] There, in March 2022, she was joined by Walt Disney Inc. CEO Bob Iger, who additionally invested within the Avatar developer.[33] Only one month later, Genies achieved its greatest monetary coup so far when US personal fairness agency Silver Lake, which additionally held shares in Dell, Alibaba, William Morris Endeavor, Seagate Expertise and the New York tech trade NASDAQ, offered the corporate with US $150 million, pushing its worth to US $1 billion.[34] Regardless of this success story, the enterprise with star avatars within the metaverse has not likely taken off but. As we now have already proven elsewhere, the metaverse is more and more proving to be an enormous misinvestment, and corporations which have guess on this horse are already starting to query their investments. This additionally applies, in fact, to the 2 music majors, which had hoped that star avatars within the metaverse would generate further income, however this has not materialised up to now.

VTuber Initiatives by Sony Music Leisure Japan

Sony Music Leisure has not but entered the AI-generated music avatar enterprise, however Sony Music Leisure Japan (SMEJ), which operates as an impartial firm underneath the Sony Group umbrella, made its first entry into the avatar enterprise in Japan in 2022 with the PRISM challenge. Launched in January 2021, the challenge targets the VTuber group. It is a development originating in Japan, the place YouTubers – also referred to as digital YouTubers – use a computer-generated digital avatar as a substitute of their very own persona to create and stream content material.[35] SMEJ wished to faucet into this potential with the PRISM challenge and introduced an audition in August 2022 for VTubers in Japan who may take part with their avatars.[36] Nonetheless, the massive breakthrough has not materialised. Probably the most profitable artist so far has been Shiki Miyoshino, who had 160,000 subscribers on YouTube and generated round 300,000 views together with her most profitable music movies.[37]

One other music avatar challenge by SMEJ – ‘VEE Digital Leisure’ – has additionally not been profitable up to now. Much like the PRISM challenge, VTubers had been to be developed to succeed in a wider viewers with their music avatars. In Could 2022, the primary three digital VTuber abilities had been introduced to the general public and featured on YouTube, Twitch and Spotify.[38] A yr later, the avatars’ music movies had racked up a couple of tens of 1000’s of views on YouTube and remained under the radar on Spotify and Twitch.[39]

Up to now, the key labels haven’t fared effectively within the music avatar enterprise. Blinded by giant person numbers, they’ve tried to capitalise on present traits with out producing them themselves, as demonstrated by Common’s failures with the NFT apes and TikTok rapper FN Mekka. There’s a clear lack of expertise of how these new applied sciences work and what their potential is. The financial significance of the metaverse and the VTuber development in Japan have each been massively overestimated. In contrast to South Korean and Chinese language leisure corporations, the music majors haven’t invested in their very own music avatar initiatives. As an alternative, as with Warner’s funding in Noonoouri, they’re merely shopping for into them, with modest outcomes. The majors aren’t trendsetters, however fairly know-how followers who danger being left behind if AI-driven success breaks via for music avatars.

Endnotes

[1] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “This digital artist simply inked a serious report deal in China. One-off gimmick – or an indication of the long run?”, July 29, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-02.

[2] YouTube, “Whet Information”, n.d., accessed: 2025-09-02.

[3] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Warner’s newest web3 transfer is an funding in digital artist and metaverse platform Genuine Artists”, June 23, 2022, accessed: 2025-09-02.

[4] Selection, “Digital-Musician Startup Genuine Artists, Backed by James Murdoch and Mike Shinoda, Comes Out of Stealth”, April 7, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-02.

[5] The New Yorker, “Is A.I. Artwork Stealing from Artists?”, February 10, 2023, accessed: 2025-09-02.

[6] Forbes, “Digital Influencer Noonoouri Lands Document Deal: Is She The Future Of Music?”, September 5, 2023, accessed: 2025-09-03.

[7] Ibid.

[8] At the very least, that’s what Joerg Zuber says in a brief video on YouTube, “Noonoouri: Abgelehnte Idee wird zum Riesen-Erfolg”, February 16, 2025, accessed: 2025-09-03.

[9] Instagram, “Noonoouri”, n.d., accessed: 2025-09-03.

[10] YouTube, “noonoouri & Alle Farben – Dominoes (Official Music Video)”, September 1, 2023, accessed: 2025-09-03.

[11] Spotify, “Noonoouri”, n.d., accessed: 2025-09-03.

[12] YouTube, “noonoouri & ENISA – Up All Nite”, June 28, 2024, accessed: 2025-09-03.

[13] FAZEMag, “noonoouri: von der Modewelt ins Musik-Enterprise mit ‘Launch Me’ (Warner Music)”, Could 9, 2025, accessed: 2025-09-03.

[14] YouTube, “noonoouri & Max and Harvey – Launch Me”, Could 9, 2025, accessed: 2025-09-03.

[15] Spotify, “Noonoouri”, n.d., accessed: 2025-09-03.

[16] Common Music Group press launch, “10:22PM Types Kingship, the First-ever Group Consisting of NFT Characters from Bored Ape Yacht Membership”, November 11, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-04.

[17] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Meet KINGSHIP, a brand new digital group launched by Common label 10:22PM”, November 12, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-04.

[18] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Common’s digital band KINGSHIP simply offered out its total assortment of 5,000 NFT ‘Key Playing cards’”, July 21, 2022, accessed: 2025-09-04.

[19] Digital Music Information, “So Lengthy, Kingship — Bored Ape ‘Supergroup’ Deletes Social Handles, YouTube Channel, and Web site As NFT Fallout Continues”, December 27, 2024, accessed: 2025-09-04.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Digital Music Information, “95% of NFT Collections, Held by Over 23 Million Folks, Are Now ‘Nugatory,’ Examine Finds”, September 21, 2023, accessed: 2025-09-04.

[22] Digital Music Information, “Federal Decide Rejects Dismissal Motions in Bored Ape NFT Lawsuit Towards Justin Bieber, Madonna, and Many Others”, August 21, 2024, accessed: 2025-09-04.

[23] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Capitol Information simply signed a digital artist, FN Meka. He has over 10 million followers on TikTok”, August 12, 2022, accessed: 2025-09-09.

[24] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Capitol drops ‘robotic rapper’ FN Meka, as challenge is accused of being an ‘insult to the Black group’”, August 24, 2022, accessed: 2025-09-09.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Common Music Group press launch, “Common Music Group and Genies Announce International Patrtnership to Develop Avatars and Digital Wearable NFTs for the Firm’s Iconic Roster of Artists”, December 9, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-09.

[27] Crunchbase, “Genies”, n.d., accessed: 2025-09-09.

[28] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Warner Music Group companions with tech firm Genies to develop avatars and NFTs for WMG artists”, April 30, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-09.

[29] TechCrunch, “Meet ‘Genies,’ the lifelike customized avatars that reenact information”, December 8, 2017, accessed: 2025-09-09.

[30] Crunchbase, “Genies”, n.d., accessed: 2025-09-09.

[31] Engadget, “Rihanna, Migos and extra are getting official metaverse avatars”, December 13, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-09.

[32] TechCrunch, “Avatar startup Genies scores $65 million in funding spherical led by Mary Meeker’s Bond”, Could 3, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-09.

[33] The Wall Avenue Journal, “After Walt Disney, Robert Iger Heads to the Metaverse”, March 14, 2022, accessed: 2025-09-09.

[34] TechCrunch, “Avatar startup Genies hits $1 billion valuation in newest increase”, April 12, 2022, accessed: 2025-09-09.

[35] Wikipedia, “VTuber”, model of September 3, 2025, accessed: 2025-09-09.

[36] PR Newswire, “Digital Expertise Administration Company PRISM Challenge Publicizes 2022 Auditions”, August 9, 2022, accessed: 2025-09-09.

[37] YouTube, “Shiki Miyoshino”, n.d., accessed: 2025-09-09.

[38] Anime Information Community, “Sony Music Leisure (Japan) Inc. Publicizes VTuber Challenge ‘VEE’, 5 1st Gen Abilities to Debut”, Could 23, 2022, accessed: 2025-09-09.

[39] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Meet the digital artists backed by a number of the world’s greatest leisure corporations”, Could 22, 2023, accessed: 2025-09-09.



Music Avatars in Video Video games – Music Enterprise Analysis

Music Avatars in Video Video games – Music Enterprise Analysis

by | Nov 16, 2025 | Entertainment Law, Music Business, Podcast News


Video video games have confirmed to be a great setting for musical avatars. Sport builders comparable to Epic Video games and Roblox recognised the potential for human superstars to carry out live shows of their video games. Cooperation between the gaming and music industries might due to this fact be mutually useful. Artists can increase their fan base by performing in entrance of the gaming neighborhood, boosting gross sales of merchandise and branded merchandise. In the meantime, sport builders can improve their person numbers and faucet into new market segments by internet hosting live shows of their video games.

Nonetheless, there are additionally factors of friction between the music and video games industries, as evidenced by the lawsuit filed by Common Publishing and different indie music publishers towards Roblox, which accused the sport developer of copyright infringement. This instance reveals that cooperation can solely succeed if sport builders dance to the tune of the foremost rights holders. In any other case, as the instance of Riot Video games reveals, sport producers should construct their very own music groups and label constructions to create and market their very own music avatars, as highlighted within the sixth and remaining a part of the collection on “Digital Music Worlds”.

Digital Music Worlds – Half 6: Music Avatars in Video Video games

Epic Video games: Celebrity-Avatare in “Fortnite”

The avatars of pop stars, which have already made profitable appearances in video video games, might be a foretaste of this. A milestone in digital live shows in video games happened on 2 February 2019. At 2 p.m. US Jap Time, 10.7 million avid gamers of the ego-shooter sport ‘Fortnite Battle Royale’ eagerly awaited the live performance by US DJ Marshmello, whose avatar carried out for ten minutes within the digital Nice Park.[1] The digital Marshmello clone carried out eight songs from his catalogue and concurrently launched the album “Marshmello Fortnite Prolonged Set” on Apple Music.[2] This efficiency was a win-win state of affairs for each the artist and Fortnite developer Epic Video games. Christopher Comstock, the DJ’s actual identify, who wears a cylindrical helmet with a smiley face paying homage to a marshmallow, was in a position to generate further income from the sale of merchandise along with selling himself. This success was additionally measurable, as a Billboard article reveals. In accordance with the article, Marshmello gained 147,000 new followers on Twitter (now X) shortly after the live performance, elevated the variety of subscribers to his YouTube channel by 1,800 per cent, and the views of his YouTube movies additionally skyrocketed by 500 per cent.[3] For Epic Video games, the ten.7 million digital live performance attendees set a brand new person report and additional elevated its recognition.

The Marshmello live performance thus grew to become the blueprint for additional digital performances by pop stars in video games. A yr later, Epic Video games collaborated with US rapper Travis Scott. Nonetheless, his 23 April 2020 efficiency in “Fortnite Battle Royale” differed considerably from the Marshmello live performance. Whereas Marshmello’s avatar stood on a conventional live performance stage and was cheered on by the digital viewers, avid gamers on the Travis Scott live performance had been drawn into his music video, “The Scotts”. The US rapper’s avatar was animated in 3D and appeared as a hologram on a digital map. It then dove into the depths of the ocean and eventually floated via area — most likely explaining the title of the live performance, “Astronomical”.[4] Travis Scott’s first look within the Fortnite sport was extra profitable than the Marshmello live performance, with 12.3 million reside viewers. After 4 extra reveals within the following days, Epic reported that the live performance had been considered 45.8 million occasions by 27.7 million distinctive customers.[5]

Epic Video games wished to capitalise on the hype and continued the looks of pop star avatars in “Fortnite Battle Royale” with Ariana Grande’s “The Rift” tour from 6 to eight August 2021. Throughout this era, the digital present was carried out 5 occasions and followers had been in a position to buy numerous digital skins of the artist and beauty gadgets on-line.[6] This was adopted by additional appearances of avatars in Fortnite video games by US rapper Eminem in December 2023,[7] heavy metallic band Metallica in June 2024[8] and a joint live performance on the finish of November 2024 by Eminem together with his colleague rappers Snoop Dogg, Ice Spice and Juice Wrld, who died in 2019 and was just about “resurrected” within the sport.[9]

Roblox: Lil Nas X

Epic Video games’ success was quickly copied by different sport builders. Just a few months after Travis Scott’s digital look in Fortnite, Lil Nas X carried out in a Roblox sport over two days in mid-November, with a complete of 4 reveals in entrance of an viewers of thousands and thousands and producing round 33 million views. Roblox additionally earned cash from followers customising their avatars with equipment comparable to cowboy hats forward of the live performance.[10] General, Roblox put in additional effort than Epic Video games, scanning the artist’s face and physique and utilizing movement seize know-how to seize his dance strikes.[11] This resulted in a really life like avatar that carried out 4 songs in numerous digital environments.[12]

For Sony Music Leisure, the efficiency by its artist was a full success, and Warner, which had acquired a minority stake in Roblox,[13] was additionally happy with the occasion. Common Music Group was the one music main to look dissatisfied, submitting a lawsuit towards Roblox for copyright infringement in June 2021. This was later joined by quite a few indie music publishers. The plaintiffs argued that Roblox was incomes tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} from customers importing unlicensed music to its gaming platforms.[14] The lawsuit searching for US$200 million in damages was filed by the Nationwide Music Publishers Affiliation (NMPA) and dismissed by Roblox as a significant misunderstanding.[15] The “misunderstanding” was apparently resolved in September 2021 when Roblox agreed to a settlement with the music publishers that had filed the lawsuit. BMG Rights Administration had already signed a licensing take care of the sport developer, and Sony had prolonged its strategic partnership.[16] Nonetheless, the lawsuit reveals that cooperation between the video games trade and the music trade have to be carried out in keeping with the principles of the latter. Labels and music publishers admire the PR perform that the appearances of their stars’ avatars in video games carry with them, however any infringement of copyright is straight away punished.

Riot Video games: Pentakill, KD/A, True Injury

To keep away from these points, Los Angeles-based sport developer Riot Video games selected a unique method. The corporate had nice success with the sport League of Legends, resulting in its acquisition by the Chinese language leisure group Tencent in 2011.[17] In 2014, Riot Video games created the digital heavy metallic band Pentakill, whose skins might be bought by avid gamers within the sport. Behind the band members – Karthus, Kayle, Mordekaiser, Olaf, Sona and Yorick – had been actual musicians comparable to drummer Tommy Lee from the heavy metallic band Mötley Crüe.[18] Pentakill’s first single, “Lightbringer”, was an enormous success because of the online game, and the official audio had reached 39 million views as of September 2025. The three albums by Pentakill, whose music was produced by an in-house music staff, additionally reached a large viewers.[19]

Nonetheless, the success of Pentakill was then far overshadowed by the digital Ok-pop woman group Ok/DA, created in 2018. Ok/DA was launched as a part of the opening ceremony of the “League of Legends World Championship” with the tune “Pop/Stars”, throughout which avid gamers might additionally buy skins for the 4 band members – Ahri, Akali, Evelynn and Kai’sa.[20] Behind these 4 fictional characters, nonetheless, had been the human singers Madison Beer, Jairan Burns, Miyeon and Soeyeon, the latter from the Ok-pop woman group (G)-Idle.[21] On the premiere on 3 November 2018, the 4 singers carried out along with their avatars within the reside present because of movement seize know-how.[22] The debut single went viral on each YouTube and music streaming platforms. On the day the music video was launched on YouTube, “Pop/Stars” was considered 5 million occasions, making it the most-watched debut video by a Ok-pop act.[23] Billboard additionally reported that the tune rapidly climbed to primary on the World Digital Tune Gross sales Chart.[24] As of September 2025, the music video has 643 million views on YouTube[25] and has been streamed practically 401 million occasions on Spotify since November 2018.[26] Nonetheless, a take a look at Spotify streams additionally reveals that the songs produced later from the album “All Out”, launched in 2020, have decrease streaming figures than “Pop/Stars”.[27] No new songs by KD/A have been launched since 2020.

This may be resulting from the truth that Riot Video games has turned its consideration to a brand new digital band venture. In November 2019, the hip-hop group True Injury made its first look within the re-creation of “League of Legends World Championship” with the tune “Giants”. Behind the band members Akali, Ekko, Qiayana, Senna and Yasuo, paying homage to Gorillaz, had been human singers. Lead singer Akali was voiced by Soyeon, who had already carried out as a rapper with KD/A. She was supported by Becky G, Duckwrth, Thutmose and Keke Palmer.[28] Nonetheless, True Injury was unable to duplicate the success of KD/A. Though the hip-hop group has recorded 225 million views on YouTube to this point (as of September 2025),[29] Spotify has reported ‘solely’ round 165 million streams since November 2019.[30]

In contrast to different sport builders, Riot Video games can also be trying to place itself as a fully-fledged music label. In an interview with Billboard Journal on the event of KD/A‘s first efficiency in early November 2018, the sport developer’s artistic director, Viranda Tantula, mentioned: “We’ve invested in constructing our inner music staff with each an artist centered artistic studio stuffed with composers, songwriters and producers, in addition to individuals who can carry out all of the companies that you’d see at a regular music label, comparable to distribution, A&R and promo.”[31]

Behind the digital music teams are Patrick Morales and his music staff, who’re joined by creative director Janelle Jimenez within the manufacturing of the music movies.[32] They type the core of the Riot Music Group, which has its personal music video channel on YouTube, though with round 700,000 subscribers and 82 movies, its efficiency is slightly modest.[33] The figures present that Riot Video games’ music initiatives have up to now didn’t make an influence past the gaming neighborhood. In abstract, video games generally is a extremely efficient advertising and marketing device for musicians, as demonstrated by the appearances of stars comparable to Travis Scott in Epic Video games’ “Fortnite” and Lil Nas X on Roblox. In addition to promoting the artists’ avatar skins immediately within the sport, video video games primarily function branding platforms. Nonetheless, it’s far more troublesome to determine new digital, and in the end AI-generated, acts in video games, as demonstrated by Riot Video games. Though they loved some success with Ok/DA, they had been unable to construct on it. Their objective of building themselves as a sustainable music label additionally appears to have solely been partially profitable. However, the gaming and music industries complement one another, and new types of collaboration might emerge with the additional growth o

Endnotes

[1] Rolling Stone, “Why Marshmello’s Fortnite Present Will Show ‘Revolutionary’ for the Music Trade” by Tim Ingham, February 22, 2019, accessed: 2025-09-10.

[2] Wikipedia, “Marshmello Fortnite Prolonged Set”, model of July 13, 2025, accessed: 2025-09-10.

[3] Billboard, “Marshmello’s Fornite Live performance: Breaking Down The Social Influence”, February 6, 2019, accessed: 2025-09-10.

[4] YouTube, “Travis Scott and Fortnite Current: Astronomical (Full Occasion Video)”, April 26, 2020, accessed: 2025-09-10.

[5] Forbes, “A Staggering Quantity Of Folks Noticed Fortnite’s Travis Scott ‘Astronomical’ Occasion”, April 28, 2020, accessed: 2025-09-10.

[6] The Verge, “Ariana Grande’s Fortnite tour was a second years within the making”, August 9, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-10.

[7] The Verge, “Fortnite’s Eminem live performance teased the way forward for the sport”, December 2, 2023, accessed: 2025-09-10.

[8] The Verge, “Fortnite’s Metallica live performance confirmed how sprawling the sport has turn into”, June 29, 2024, accessed: 2025-09-10.

[9] The Verge, “The way to watch Fortnite’s huge Juice WRLD, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Ice Spice live performance”, November 30, 2024, accessed: 2025-09-10.

[10] BBC Information, “Lil Nas X performs his first digital live performance on Roblox”, November 16, 2020, accessed: 2025-09-10.

[11] Ibid.

[12] YouTube, “The Lil Nas X Full Roblox Live performance”, December 14, 2020, accessed: 2025-09-11.

[13] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Warner Music Group joins $520m funding spherical in online game platform Roblox”, January 7, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-11.

[14] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Roblox sued for $200m+ by music publishers, who allege copyright infringement”, June 9, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-15.

[15] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Roblox says $200m+ copyright lawsuit is predicated on a ‘basic misunderstanding’. Music publishers disagree”, June 10, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-15.

[16] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Roblox strikes take care of music publishers”, September 27, 2021, accessed: 2025-09-15.

[17] Reuters, “Tencent acquires majority stake in Riot Video games”, February 5, 2011, accessed: 2025-09-15.

[18] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Meet the digital artists backed by among the world’s largest leisure firms”, Could 22, 2023, accessed: 2025-09-15.

[19] Wikipedia, “Pentakill”, model of December 18, 2024, accessed: 2025-09-15.

[20] Dot Esports, “Riot places on an augmented actuality Ok-Pop live performance for Worlds in tandem with a brand-new music video”, November 3, 2018, accessed: 2025-09-16.

[21] Digiverse, “A brief historical past of digital artists”, October 12, 2022, accessed: 2025-09-16.

[22] Billboard, “‘League of Legends’ Unveils Digital Ok-Pop Woman Group Ok/DA, Appears to Way forward for Music in Esports”, November 5, 2018, accessed: 2025-09-16.

[23] Fox Sports activities, “League of Legends Ok-POP group Ok/DA’s debut music video hits record-breaking 13 million views on YouTube”, November 6, 2018, accessed: 2025-09-16.

[24] Billboard, “‘League of Legends’ Woman Group Earns Madison Beer, (G)I-DLE & Jaira Burns No. 1 on World Digital Tune Gross sales Chart”, November 13, 2018, accessed: 2025-09-16.

[25] YouTube, “Ok/DA – POP/STARS (ft. Madison Beer, (G)I-DLE, Jaira Burns) | Music Video – League of Legends”, November 3, 2018, accessed: 2025-09-16.

[26] Spotify, “KD/A”, n.d., accessed: 2025-09-16.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Meet the digital artists backed by among the world’s largest leisure firms”, Could 22, 2023, accessed: 2025-09-16.

[29] YouTube, “True Injury – Giants (mit Becky G, Keke Palmer, SOYEON von (G)I-DLE, DUCKWRTH, Thutmose)”, November 10, 2019, accessed: 2025-09-16.

[30] Spotify, “True Injury”, n.d., accessed: 2025-09-16.

[31] Billboard, “‘League of Legends’ Unveils Digital Ok-Pop Woman Group Ok/DA, Appears to Way forward for Music in Esports”, November 5, 2018, accessed: 2025-09-16.

[32] INVEN World, “Interview With Patrick Morales, Janelle Jimenez, and Toa Dunn; the Creators of the World Sensation, Ok/DA-POP/STARS”, November 27, 2018, accessed: 2025-09-16.

[33] YouTube, “Riot Video games Music”, n.d., accessed: 2025-09-16.

ABBA Voyage – Music Enterprise Analysis

ABBA Voyage – Music Enterprise Analysis

by | Oct 26, 2025 | Entertainment Law, Music Business, Podcast News


Whereas Hatsune Miku‘s voice was nonetheless generated by a vocal synthesiser, the voices of right now’s music avatars is produced by synthetic intelligence. One significantly profitable mission is “ABBA Voyage”. Utilizing refined know-how, avatars of the 4 ABBA members Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad had been delivered to life on stage in London, creating a brand new viewers attraction that shall be examined in additional element partially 3 of the collection on “Digital Music Worlds”.

Digital Music Worlds – Half 3: ABBA Voyage

The event and implementation of ABBA Voyage

An early instance of AI generated music avatars is arguably Sweden’s most profitable music export of all time: ABBA. After Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad made the far-reaching resolution in December 1982 to cease performing collectively, there have been repeated rumours of a reunion. Most just lately, these rumours had been fuelled by the large success of the primary “Mamma Mia!” film in 2008,[1] which was primarily based on the musical of the identical title that premiered in London’s West Finish in 1999.[2] ABBA mastermind Björn Ulvaeus even felt compelled to emphasize in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph: “We’ll by no means seem on stage once more. There may be merely no motivation to re-group. Cash isn’t an element and we want folks to recollect us as we had been – younger, exuberant, filled with power and ambition.”[3] Not even a suggestion of US$1 billion from an American-British monetary consortium for a joint tour, made to the pop group in 2000, may persuade the celebs to face on the live performance stage collectively once more.[4]

Though this perspective wouldn’t change later, there was no point out of a digital reunion on the time. Nevertheless, in an interview with Billboard journal on the finish of October 2016, Simon Fuller, the creator of the TV expertise present “American Idol” and CEO of 19 Leisure, introduced his plan to resurrect ABBA in digital actuality utilizing the most recent applied sciences and synthetic intelligence. He satisfied the 4 ABBA stars to take part and invited them to play an lively position: “We’re exploring a brand new technological world, with digital actuality and synthetic intelligence on the forefront, that can enable us to create new types of leisure and content material we couldn’t have beforehand imagined.”[5]

Step one on this course was to report a brand new album. Subsequently, ABBA reunited in a Stockholm sound studio in spring 2018, the place they recorded two new songs: ‘I Nonetheless Have Religion in You’ and ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’. Nevertheless, in an interview with the BBC, Björn Ulvaeus was quite obscure in regards to the digital ABBA mission. The one data he revealed was that work was underway on creating avatars, or ‘ABBA-tars’, that will tour instead of the human ABBA members.[6]

The mission gained momentum when British music video director Baillie Walsh joined the event workforce. In an in-depth interview for “Esquire”, he recounted how he was invited by the 2 govt producers, Svana Gisla and Ludvig Andersson, Benny Andersson’s son, to proceed growing the digital ABBA mission from 2019 onwards.[7] Initially, the concept was to convey ABBA onto the stage as holograms. Nevertheless, because the know-how was thought-about outdated and unsatisfactory, Walsh sat down with representatives from Industrial Gentle & Magic (ILM), the corporate based by Star Wars creator George Lucas, to discover the technical prospects of AI-generated ABBA avatars performing life-size on stage. The answer was a 10-metre-high LED wall, the place the inside lighting and stage lighting had been coordinated with the assistance of quite a few cameras to create the phantasm of a three-dimensional presence of the projected avatars.[8] Nevertheless, to attain this, the avatars first needed to be created utilizing movement seize know-how much like that used for Hatsune Miku. Within the winter of 2020, the 4 ABBA stars subsequently met at a specialist studio in Stockholm, the place they slipped into fits geared up with small spherical markers at particular factors on the physique. These fits had been used to seize the celebs’ actions from totally different angles utilizing 160 cameras.[9] It took 5 lengthy and intense weeks to report the dance sequences for every tune with ABBA’s 4 members and quite a few youthful physique doubles underneath the course of star choreographer Wayne McGregor utilizing movement seize.[10] The faces of Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid had been additionally captured intimately and rejuvenated utilizing AI. This ensured that the 4 ABBA members regarded convincingly actual on stage.[11]

The consequence was spectacular when, on 26 Could 2022, the premiere passed off on the ABBA Enviornment, which had been erected near Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London for 3,000 spectators, with distinguished visitors together with the Swedish royal couple. However it wasn’t simply the viewers who raved in regards to the convincingly practical avatar present,[12] which, with a finances of US$175 million, was the most costly stage manufacturing so far.[13]

Nevertheless, the investments have paid off. By 2022, 675,600 tickets had already been bought for “ABBA Voyage,” producing a income of GBP 97.1 million and a pre-tax revenue of practically GBP 3 million for Aniara Ltd., the corporate accountable for the digital present. In 2023, the variety of tickets bought rose to 1.1 million, leading to a turnover of GBP 103.7 million and a pre-tax revenue of GBP 6.1 million.[14] In December 2024, it was introduced that “ABBA Voyage” had bought 3 million tickets since its premiere and generated a gross worth added of GBP 775 million for the London economic system in its first two years.[15] Subsequently, it’s not shocking that these accountable sought a approach to make sure that “ABBA Voyage” would keep in London past April 2026, when the sector’s allow expires and it is because of make approach for a residential development mission.[16] The live performance corridor resembles a UFO and could be utterly dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere as a result of it was at all times meant for a global tour as a part of the “ABBA Voyage” mission.[17]

ABBA-tare as Position Fashions for Different Music Avatars: Avicii and KISS

Nevertheless, “ABBA Voyage” may quickly be increasing. Pophouse Leisure, the occasion and music rights firm co-founded by Björn Ulvaeus in 2014 and an investor in “ABBA Voyage”, has been shopping for up music catalogues from quite a few artists since 2022. For instance, in March 2022, Pophouse introduced that it had bought the grasp and publishing rights of the Swedish EDM group Swedish Home Mafia.[18] Nevertheless, Pophouse prompted a stir on the finish of September 2022 when it acquired 75 per cent of the grasp and publishing rights of the Swedish DJ Avicii, who died younger, from his heirs, the Bergling household.[19] It appeared probably that Avicii may very well be “resurrected” as a digital musician sooner or later. This assumption was confirmed in April 2024 when Pophouse acquired not solely the tune catalogue and related artist royalties of the glam rock band KISS, but additionally their NIL rights (title, picture, likeness), together with the rights to their distinctive face paint, for US $300 million. Per Sundin, now CEO of Pophouse and former head of Common Sweden, defined: “Our partnership will fuse the wealthy historical past and iconic standing of KISS with cutting-edge know-how, permitting followers – now and sooner or later – to expertise the band like by no means earlier than.”[20] This additionally contains the creation of avatars of the musicians modelled on the ABBA-tare, which may then go on tour as a digital band, as evidenced by an settlement that KISS concluded 4 months earlier than the rights take care of Pophouse.[21] KISS already has expertise with performances by their avatars. On the finish of their live performance at Madison Sq. Backyard in New York Metropolis, the enduring American band had their avatars carry out “God Gave Rock And Roll To You” as an encore, as evidenced by a promotional clip on YouTube.[22] We’re subsequently at first of a improvement whereby dwelling and deceased artists will take to the live performance stage within the type of AI-generated avatars. This may have vital financial implications. Avatars of superstars may carry out elsewhere on the similar time, relieving their human position fashions of the necessity to go on tour. This may additional focus the reside music market, which is already dominated by the famous person impact, making it tougher for youthful musicians to construct a profession. Moreover, music rights, significantly persona rights (NIL rights), will proceed to extend in worth as they’re

Endnotes

[1] Wikipedia, “Mamma Mia! (movie)”, model of August 22, 2025, accessed: 2025-08-22.

[2] Wikipedia, “Mamma Mia! (musical)”, model of August 24, 2025, accessed: 2025-08-22.

[3] Cited in The Guardian, “Abba reunion: Don’t maintain your breath”, July 7, 2008, accessed: 2025-08-26.

[4] Enterprise Insider, “Why ABBA Turned Down $1 Billion To Reunite In 2000”, July 9, 2014, accessed: 2025-08-26.

[5] Billboard, “‘Digital’ ABBA Coming Quickly By way of Partnership with Simon Fuller and Common Music”, October 26, 2016, accessed: 2025-08-26.

[6] BBC Information, “Abba announce first new music since 1982”, April 27, 2018, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[7] Esquire, “Tremendous Trouper”, July 21, 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[8] An in depth description of the technical implementation of the digital ABBA mission could be discovered within the journal Ingenia, “How ABBA Voyage was made”, September 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[9] Ibid.

[10] NME, “ABBA Voyage’s creators inform us how they made the present, and what’s subsequent”, Could 28, 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[11] Ingenia, “How ABBA Voyage was made”, September 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[12] The Guardian, “Abba Voyage assessment: jaw-dropping avatar act that’s destined to be copied”, Could 26, 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[13] Musically, “Bloomberg breaks down numbers behind ABBA Voyage’s success”, September 5, 2023, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[14] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “ABBA Voyage generated $129m in 2023, as digital live performance collection attracts 1.1m guests”, October 1, 2024, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[15] ITV Information, “Abba Voyage to promote its 3,000,000th ticket this month after London present introduced £1.4bn economic system enhance”, December 9, 2024, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[16] Metro, “May Abba Voyage be leaving London for good?”, April 2, 2024, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[17] Ingenia, “How ABBA Voyage was made”, September 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[18] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Swedish Home Mafia promote grasp recordings and publishing catalogs to Pophouse”, March 29, 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[19] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Pophouse Leisure buys 75% of Avicii grasp recordings and publishing”, September 28, 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[20] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “KISS sells tune catalog, title and IP to Pophouse, firm behind ABBA Voyage, in $300m deal”, April 4, 2024, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[21] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “KISS to stage avatar present in partnership with Pophouse Leisure, following the success of ABBA Voyage in London”, December 4, 2023, accessed: 2025-08-27.

[22] YouTube, “KISS – A New Period Begins”, December 3, 2023, accessed: 2025-08-27.

JKBX – the Sport Changer? – Music Enterprise Analysis

JKBX – the Sport Changer? – Music Enterprise Analysis

by | Oct 5, 2025 | Entertainment Law, Music Business, Podcast News


JKBX, pronounced like ‘jukebox’, might be a sport changer for the music funding markets. Fairly than providing low-yield music catalogues from second-tier artists, JKBX sells revenue participation rights to royalty streams from helpful catalogues, corresponding to that housing the songs of OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder. By doing this, JKBX hyperlinks the billion-dollar music rights market with the idea of fragmented music rights on funding marketplaces. Solely time will inform whether or not this idea will finally achieve the long run. On this a part of the weblog sequence, we study JKBX’s enterprise mannequin and company construction in additional element.

Music Funding Marketplaces – Half 4: JKBX – the Sport Changer?*

The Basis of JKBX

Jukebox Know-how LLC was based by the music trade veteran Scott Cohen in addition to Sam Hendel and John Chapman of UK-private fairness agency Dundee Companions in 2023 headquartered in Culver Metropolis/California. In September 2023, Jukebox Know-how launched the fractionalised music royalty platform http://www.jkbx.com on the Web.[1] Scott Cohen co-founded with Richard Gottehrer the digital music distributor The Orchard in New York Metropolis in 1997, which was acquired by Sony Music Leisure in two tranches in 2012 and 2015 for a complete of US $300 million.[2] In 2019, Cohen left The Orchard to develop into Chief Innovation Officer at Warner Music Group,[3] earlier than  becoming a member of Sam Hendel and John Chapman to kind Jukebox Know-how.

Dundee Companions collaborates with Chord Music Companions, owned by the PE firm Kohlberg Kravis Robert & Co. (KKR), to purchase the KMR Music Royalties II fund for US $1.1 billion[4] in addition to the music catalogue of the One Republic frontman and songwriter Ryan Tedder.[5] Dundee can also be a associate of the PE firm Francisco Companions and MUSIC, which bought the Swedish Kobalt Music Group for US $750 million.[6] Subsequently, Dundee Companions was concerned within the acquisition of three giant music catalogues.

The Construction and Functioning of JKBX

JKBX is just not the innovator of fractional music royalty marketplaces however is nonetheless a sport changer. In contrast to a lot of the music funding marketplaces that promote participation rights in artists royalty income streams, JKBX targets giant music rights house owners that need to monetize their catalogues.[7] Rightsholders can provide components of their music catalogues (publishing and grasp rights) as royalty shares on the JKBX platform. Subsequently, Jukebox Know-how based the Delaware registered firm Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 LLC on 3 April 2023, which secured US Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC) approval as a Regulation A providing[8] in March 2024.[9] The Providing Round describes Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 LLC as “(…) restricted legal responsibility firm established to facilitate and handle traders’ financial publicity to the Firm’s contractual proper to obtain a portion of the royalties, charges, and different revenue streams (“Earnings Pursuits”) associated to or derived from musical songs, compositions, sound recordings, portfolios or catalogs (“Music Belongings”).”[10] Subsequently, Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 enters into buy agreements with so-called revenue curiosity house owners, a synonym for music catalogue house owners. The music belongings are break up up into so-called Royalty Shares which are issued in sequence, associated to a selected music asset corresponding to a composition, a sound recording or a portfolio of songs. As Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 is a SEC registered firm, the music belongings are offered like shares. The patrons of the Royalty Shares are entitled to obtain a portion of the royalty income generated by the underlying licenses. Nevertheless, the Providing Round clarifies that the issued Royalty Shares “are unsecured restricted obligations”, which “don’t confer any voting rights on the holders thereof.”[11] This makes it clear that the acquisition of royalty shares doesn’t set up possession of the traders within the firm Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 nor within the underlying music belongings. Buyers in JKBX royalty shares solely purchase contractual rights to earned royalty streams. The contractual rights are bought as Royalty Shares on the web-based platform http://www.jkbx.com, which is owned by Jukebox Know-how LLC.[12] Whereas Jukebox Hits Vol 1 LLC is managed and administered by the Delaware registered firm Double Platinum Administration LLC.[13]

Determine 1: The JKBX conglomerate

Supply: After Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 LLC, “Providing Round”, March 1, 2024, p. 19.

At the moment the one catalogue proprietor that has entered a purchase order settlement with Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 LLC on 5 November 2023 is the Coda Songs LLC,[14] which is a 100 per cent affiliate of Inkling Capital LLC. The only proprietor of Inkling Capital, nevertheless, is John Chapman, who’s a co-founder of JKBX.[15] Subsequently all of the underlying publishing and grasp rights for the Royalty Shares are owned by a senior govt of JKBX. The data spotlight that Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 LLC paid US $43 million in money to Coda Songs LLC to accumulate the revenue pursuits within the music belongings.[16] The acquisition worth needs to be refunded by the sale of the Royalty Shares, that are supplied to so-called “certified purchasers”.[17]

The Financial Potential of JKBX

Determine 2: The highest 10 performing Royalty Shares by yield

Title Re-lease Date Rights sort Royalty sort Songwriterrecording artist producer 2023 royalty revenue Worth per share No. of shares Yield
All people Loves Me 2009 Sound recording producer Associated rights Digital Producer Ryan Tedder $685.16 $16.00 25 171.29%
If I Lose Myself 2013 Sound recording producer Associated rights Digital Producer Ryan Tedder $8,884.61 $1.84 50,000 9.66%
Wings 2013 Sound recording producer Associated rights Digital Royalty participant Producer Ryan Tedder $4,777.47 $31.00 2,000 7.71%
Ghost 2014 Compo-sition Songwriter Public perfor-mance SongwriterRyan Tedder $25,440.05 $3.34 100,000 7.62%
Wings 2013 Compo-sition Songwriter Public perfor-mance SongwriterRyan Tedder $17,921.20 $2.38 100,000 7.53%
Counting Stars 2013 Sound recording producer Associated rights Digital Producer Ryan Tedder $22,559.59 $3.23 100,000 6.98%
Welcome to New York 2014 Sound recording producer Associated rights Digital Royalty participant Producer Ryan Tedder $3,008.46 $45.00 1,000 6.68%
Good Life 2009 Sound recording producer Neighbouring Digital Producer Ryan Tedder $5,551.65 $1.55 60,000 5.97%
All of the Proper Strikes 2009 Sound recording producer Neighbouring Digital Producer Ryan Tedder $9,636.64 $1.65 100,000 5.84%
Counting Stars 2013 Compo-sition Songwriter Public perfor-mance Sync Mechanical Different SongwriterRyan Tedder $345,190 $31.37 200,000 5.50%

Supply: JKBX, “All Listings”, n.d., accessed: 2025-03-27.

Determine 3: The ten worst performing Royalty Shares by yield

Title Re-lease Date Rights sort Royalty sort Songwriterrecording artist producer 2023 royalty revenue Worth per share No. of shares Yield
Diploma-tico 2018 Sound Recording Grasp Gross sales
Sync Digital		 Label: Third Pardee Data $5,807.43 $3.47 100,000 1.67%
Make It Sizzling 2019 Sound Recording Grasp Gross sales
Sync Digital		 Label: Third Pardee Data $3,640.77 $2.35 100,000 1.55%
Brighter Than The Solar 2011 Sound Recording Producer Associated rights Digital Royalty participant Producer: Ryan Tedder $851.30 $55.00 1,000 1.55%
Each Breaking Wave 2014 Sound Recording Grasp Associated rights Digital Royalty participant Producer: Ryan Tedder $1,576.65 $1.80 60,000 1.46%
Blow That Smoke 2018 Sound Recording Grasp Gross sales
Sync Digital		 Label: Third Pardee Data $3,999.92 $2.79 100,000 1.43%
Track For Somebody 2014 Sound Recording Producer Associated rights Digital Royalty participant Producer: Ryan Tedder $2,284.66 $1.66 100,000 1.38%
Connec-tion 2018 Sound Recording Producer Associated rights Digital Producer: Ryan Tedder $1,215.65 $2.02 50,000 1.20%
Specific Style 2018 Compo-sition Songwriter Public perfor-mance Songwriter: Ryan Tedder $266.05 $24.00 1,000 1.11%
Specific Style 2018 Sound Recording Producer Associated rights Digital Royalty participant Producer: Ryan Tedder $0.78 $50.00 3 0.52%
Burn 2012 Sound Recording Producer Associated rights Digital Producer: Ryan Tedder $0.00 $10.00 100 0.00%

Supply: JKBX, “All Listings”, n.d., accessed: 2025-03-27.

The SEC Regulation A providing of Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 LLC stipulates that solely “accredited traders” can purchase Royalty Shares. These are pure individuals with an revenue of greater than US $200,000 in every of the 2 current years and so-called Excessive Web Price People (HNWIs) with a internet wealth increased than US $1 million.[18] Subsequently, solely comparatively rich traders can purchase JKBX Royalty Shares. Therefore, JKBX has the proper to evaluate and settle for but in addition reject a subscription to purchase Royalty Shares.[19] The JKBX music funding market, subsequently, solely permits restricted entry to its merchandise. The preliminary providing worth of the Royalty Shares are decided by Double Platinum Administration on an arbitrary foundation.[20] JKBX factors to the danger, that the precise worth of the funding, subsequently, could also be lower than what traders pay.[21] The Royalty Shares are offered on the www.jkbx.com platform on the Web to “certified traders” and the proceeds from the providing are used to fund the acquisition prices of the Royalty Rights and to pay overhead, worker prices, utilities and expertise prices, which incur by the administration firm.[22]

Though JKBX plans to launch a secondary market to commerce Royalty Shares, there isn’t any intention to commerce Royalty Shares on a inventory alternate. At the moment, nevertheless, no different buying and selling system is obtainable on the JKBX webpage.[23] It’s because Royalty Shares are unsecured restricted obligations of Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 LLC, whose commerce is related to a excessive danger.[24] Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 LLC has issued 97 Royalty Shares with completely different underlying composition and recording rights.

Regardless of its potential for innovation, JKBX is at the moment a gross sales platform for contractual rights to earned royalty streams and restricted to rich traders. It’s neither a buying and selling platform for music rights nor a inventory alternate for music shares. Moreover, JKBX solely has a single music catalogue, acquired from Coda Songs for round US $43 million. This funding should first be recouped by the sale of Royalty Shares. It stays to be seen whether or not additional music catalogues shall be obtainable for the sale of Royalty Shares sooner or later.

Endnotes

[1] Billboard, “Wish to Make investments In Your Favourite Track? JKBX Bets Followers Will Deliver Billions to Market”, August 25, 2023, accessed: 2025-03-25.

[2] Billboard, “Sony’s Orchard Acquisition, By the Numbers and Behind the Scenes”, March 19, 2015, accessed: 2025-03-25.

[3] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Official: Warner hires Scott Cohen, co-founder of The Orchard, as Chief Innovation Officer, Recorded Music”, March 6, 2019, accessed: 2025-03-25.

[4] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Confirmed: Kobalt sells catalog to new KKR enterprise, Chord, for $1.1 billion”, October 19, 2021, accessed 2025-01-15.

[5] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “KKR buys majority stake in Ryan Tedder catalog, marking funding large’s return to music rights possession“, January 11, 2021, accessed: 2024-12-11.

[6] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Kobalt Music Group offered to US-based personal fairness agency Francisco Companions”, September 7, 2022, accessed: 2024-12-11.

[7] In September 2023, JKBX additionally launched its Creator Program for artists, who need to promote a share of their royalty income streams; see: Music Enterprise Worldwide, “JKBX, launching this week, confirms it should pay songwriters and artists direct by way of ‘Creator Program’ – even when they don’t personal their rights”, September 11, 2023, accessed: 2025-03-25.

[8] A Regulation A providing is a sort of mini Preliminary Public Providing (IPO), which permits to supply and promote securities to the general public by way of a course of that’s much like, however much less in depth than, a registered providing; see: US Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC), “Regulation A”, November 14, 2024, accessed: 2025-03-25.

[9] Music Enterprise Worldwide, “Music royalties buying and selling platform JKBX launches – with regulatory approval from the SEC”, March 6, 2024, accessed: 2025-03-25.

[10] Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 LLC, “Providing Round”, March 1, 2024, p. 1.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., p. 2.

[13] Ibid., p. 1.

[14] Ibid., p. 16.

[15] Ibid., p. 45.

[16] Ibid., p. 61.

[17] Ibid., p. 13.

[18] Ibid., p. 49.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid., p. 25.

[21] Ibid., p. 34.

[22] Ibid., p. 14.

[23] Ibid., p. 2.

[24] Ibid., p. 34.

This weblog submit relies on the report IP Finance within the Music Business, which was commissioned by the World Mental Property Rights Group (WIPO).

The Financial Potential of MIMs – Music Enterprise Analysis

The Financial Potential of MIMs – Music Enterprise Analysis

by | Sep 14, 2025 | Entertainment Law, Music Business, Podcast News


Within the earlier 4 components (half 1, half 2, half 3 and half 4) of the sequence on music funding marketplaces, we analysed many alternative enterprise fashions, together with people who have failed. On this fifth and last a part of the weblog sequence, we’ll summarise the findings from components 1-4 and assess the financial potential of the person fashions. Particularly, we’ll consult with the completely different copyright frameworks in america in comparison with different nations, particularly in Europe, to reply the query of what’s wanted to create a well-functioning and clear music funding market.

Music Funding Marketplaces – Half 5: The Financial Potential of MIMs

Completely different Enterprise Fashions of MIMs

Music funding marketplaces purpose to monetise music rights for buyers and create a market for them. Nonetheless, evaluation of music funding marketplaces exhibits that there are at the moment many alternative fashions vying for the favour of buyers. Usually, MIMs goal small buyers and music followers who should purchase shares in music rights for a number of {Dollars} or Euros. There are additionally choices corresponding to Royalty Alternate, sliceNote and JKBX, that are aimed extra at rich buyers or excessive web price people who can afford to speculate bigger quantities per share. Generally, nonetheless, buyers can’t purchase music rights instantly, however solely participation rights in royalty streams. Resulting from copyright legal guidelines in a lot of the European nations, it isn’t potential to buy music rights. Rights can solely be licensed to be used. Because of this, European marketplaces solely supply oblique methods for consumers to generate income from music rights. Completely different methods are used. The Austrian MIM World Rockstar presents “alternatives” through a crowdfunding platform to small buyers who can purchase participation rights within the income streams of artists. As World Rockstar additionally operates a label and a music publishing firm, artists can both license their rights on to World Rockstar or supply them on the market instantly on the platform within the type of participation rights. In each instances, buyers don’t obtain any rights to the underlying publishing and grasp rights.

Different platforms additionally supply rights to royalty streams, marketed beneath names corresponding to “SongShares” from the French firm Bolero or “Preliminary Music Choices” (IMOs) from the Swedish MasterExchange. The US-based JKBX additionally doesn’t promote shares in music rights or songs instantly, however participatory rights within the type of “Royalty Shares”. Solely the US platforms slice Be aware and Royalty Alternate supply shares in music rights for direct buy, primarily to rich buyers keen to pay US $10,000 per share.

Shares are offered both at costs set upfront by the platforms or the rights house owners, or via auctions, as within the case of SongVest, Musicow and ANote Music. Musicow and ANote Music enable bought shares to be resold on secondary buying and selling platforms after the preliminary buy, though the administration charge per transaction is often larger on the secondary market. The European MIMs Tangy Market and Bolero observe an analogous mannequin, however and not using a prior public sale. Resale platforms are additionally deliberate for World Rockstar and JKBX. Nonetheless, JKBX explicitly states that the Royalty Shares can solely be traded on the corporate’s personal secondary gross sales platform and never on an exterior inventory trade.

Some platforms try to unravel the repurchase of music rights shares via tokenisation, promoting the participation rights within the type of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the blockchain. Swedish platforms MasterExchange and Anotherblock and Turkish platform Parça promote music rights NFTs on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains respectively. The Austrian platform World Rockstar additionally permits the acquisition of NFTs along with the traditional analogue sale of “alternatives”.

The Situations for a Functioning Music Funding Market

The completely different fashions present that it’s tough to make music rights a tradable commodity that may be purchased and offered by small buyers. Particularly outdoors the US, copyright legal guidelines make it tough to make music rights tradable as monetary merchandise. As well as, many artists don’t management their publishing and mastering rights and may solely “promote” their earnings streams from accumulating societies within the type of participation rights. It’s simpler for music publishers and labels to monetise their music catalogues on MIMs, as the instance of JKBX exhibits.

The US subsequently has a bonus over the EU due to its copyright framework. It’s not solely the likelihood to promote copyright and associated rights that makes the US a thriving music rights market, but in addition the opportunity of reversion rights, that are primarily utilized by superstars to regain management over their music catalogues. Nonetheless, the excessive fragmentation of rights within the EU can be an impediment to the event of a well-functioning music rights market. If, as within the US, it’s potential to amass not solely the publishing and grasp rights of an artist, but in addition the NIL (identify, picture and likeness) rights, then this bundle of rights has a better financial worth. Then again, transaction prices improve when completely different rights are distributed amongst completely different actors. If, furthermore, music rights can’t be offered however solely licensed to be used, as is the case within the EU, then, because the music funding marketplaces present, difficult workarounds corresponding to rights to royalty streams have for use. Finally, nonetheless, it’s a political determination whether or not the authorized framework ought to encourage the creation of music markets on the expense of the authorized safety of creators.

For music funding marketplaces to work effectively, they want additionally helpful music catalogues that generate a daily income stream. That’s why MIMs work higher in markets the place such music catalogues are extra available – such because the US, South Korea (because of Okay-Pop) and Sweden (because of many internationally profitable songwriters) – than in markets the place these situations aren’t met. The failure of Estonia’s Fanvestory is an efficient instance of how a supplier wants the backing of a robust market to function its enterprise mannequin in a sustainable means. This enterprise mannequin is based on taking administration charges, which vary from 1 to eight per cent per transaction for the varied suppliers. Nonetheless, it is sensible to have a second monetary mainstay, corresponding to World Rockstar, which can be a music writer and label. One other necessary success issue is that the MIMs have adequate liquidity, i.e. investor capital. An absence of liquidity has proved deadly for Fanvestory, Vezt and Royal.io, which have already ceased buying and selling attributable to a scarcity of investor capital.

That is additionally attributable to the truth that returns don’t at all times meet expectations. An evaluation of the returns on Royalty Alternate and JKBX exhibits that the values are extremely depending on {the catalogue} and the efficiency of particular person songs, which can be extremely risky over time. As well as, most platforms supply comparatively few funding alternatives, often effectively beneath 100. Solely Royalty Alternate and Musicow have greater than thousand funding alternatives on their webpages. World Rockstar, Tangy Market, SongVest, Bolero and JKBX are in the course of the vary with not less than 100 alternatives.

Mainly, it’s a dangerous funding that’s not advisable for small buyers with out prior information of how the music rights enterprise works. Because of this, South Korea’s Monetary Companies Fee took motion to research Musicow’s enterprise mannequin extra intently and solely gave the corporate the inexperienced mild to proceed working after the Korean platform improved investor safety.

Then again, music funding marketplaces enable artists to monetise their music rights and followers to speculate, not less than not directly, of their favorite music. Both means, there may be potential for the creation of an progressive market for music rights, though there must be regulatory safety for each the rights holders who supply their royalty shares on the market and the small-scale buyers who purchase monetary merchandise backed by music rights.