The music industry is enjoying a period of prosperity, with streaming revenue, vinyl sales, and CD sales all on the rise. Taking advantage of this financial success, startups are now offering fans the opportunity to invest in their favorite songs. Jkbx is a new music royalties marketplace that plans to allow fans to buy “royalty shares” or fractionalized portions of royalties and other income associated with a particular song. With prices accessible to regular people, this concept aims to gamify fandom and encourage fans to support artists as if they were star quarterbacks in fantasy football. Jkbx draws inspiration from the surge of big-ticket catalog deals between artists and private equity and music world firms, which have seen the value of music catalogs skyrocket.
Jkbx CEO Scott Cohen, a respected figure in the music industry, envisions this platform transforming the music business and ultimately leading to an industry-wide boom, similar to how fantasy football has impacted the NFL. The idea behind Jkbx came from the success of music catalog deals, where private equity and music firms saw potential in remixes, licensing deals, and viral moments on platforms like TikTok. Cohen believes that if these institutional investors find value in royalties, fans will be even more eager to participate. However, potential investors will need to understand the intricacies of what they are buying and how royalties work, as buying shares on Jkbx represents a specific portion of a royalty stream, rather than the entirety of the rights.