Songwriter publishing rights attract buyout firms because they are simpler contracts than recording rights

Evidence

These firms amass capital to purchase copyrights, ranging from hit songs to entire catalogs. With massive war chests of capital, they pay musicians a large lump sum for their copyright, which they can then license or resell. Songwriters are the typical target, since publishing rights are not as contractually complicated as recording rights, which are dominated by the Big 3 labels. For musicians, these buyouts can be enticing: the new streaming regime pays little to any but the most popular musicians, a disordered global system of digital services makes tracking down payments difficult, and new tax proposals are advising higher tax rates on capital gains. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 224

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the structural distinction between publishing vs recording rights that makes songwriters the buyout target.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how do these lump-sum buyout deals price the future streaming income stream, and what discount rate do they assume?
• XREF: connects to: Digital contract weightlessness lets firms extract rights that paper terms could not impose — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 152