News

SongVest Offers Royalty Shares

The founders of SongVest Inc. have announced the November launch of their Web site, a digital auction house for the rights to 18 songs by Garth Brooks, Aerosmith, Cher and more. While investors won't have a say in the TV/film licensing of said songs, they'll receive a portion of the royalties once a track is sold, and SongWest collects its commission rate (25-to-40-percent) from the buyer and seller. In the past, music publishing deals have included as many as a thousand songs in "catalog" bundles. According to a Wall Street Journal interview with SongVest co-founder, David Prohaska, "[Those songs are] sold on a pure investment basis. What about people who really love the music?"

Or as songwriter Mark Hudson (Bon Jovi, Ringo Starr, Ozzy Osbourne) put it quite simply, "No one is buying records. This to me is just another angle [to actually make money]."

—The ARTISTdirect Staff
10.10.08