Streaming transforms each play into a financial transaction, inflating catalog music value

Evidence

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. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 227

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s stated project: here is the concrete causal mechanism by which streaming changes royalty economics, the foundation for tracing to aesthetic form.
• DEFINE: Defines ‘catalog music’ (older than eighteen months) and gives the 2020-2023 share shift.
• SEED: Angle: ‘Bowie Bonds as the first securitization of pop culture — what did 1997’s precursor lack that 2020s catalog funds have, and does that difference show up in the music?’