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<\/p>\n The bond market is crooning along to a familiar tune of financial engineering. Last week, the Financial Times<\/i> reported<\/a> that securitized music catalogues were going \u201cmainstream,\u201d as large investors including Blackstone and the state of Michigan\u2019s pension fund seek new avenues for returns. The bonds aren\u2019t exactly new-fangled. They\u2019ve existed in some form since the 1990s. But they\u2019re becoming normalized, now treated as a mainstream option by major investment firms and funds. And in a thoroughly memeified, chasing-the-latest-thing culture, it\u2019s a safe bet that the model will get plenty of uptake.<\/p>\n David Bowie launched<\/a> what became the eponymous \u201cBowie Bond\u201d in 1997 along with his financial manager Bill Zysblat, celebrated by a credulous press as a market \u201cinnovation.\u201d The bonds were meant to extract investment returns from the singer\u2019s back catalogue by way of securitizing future royalties at a healthy rate of 7.9 percent annually.<\/p>\n The idea of packaging up assets and selling them as securities is, to say the least, one that we\u2019re all too familiar with. For most, especially those who lived through the global financial crisis, housing debt stands out as the prototypical bundle. But as today\u2019s music-rights salesmen are demonstrating, just about anything with a revenue stream can be wrapped up, sliced, and sold.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s worth asking why Bowie launched the bonds in the first place. In 2016, the BBC reported<\/a> that the late musician used some of the capital raised to \u201cbuy out his former manager\u201d as he sought greater control over his work. The deal also seems to have left him with a healthy boost to his wealth, too. But it\u2019s complicated. Musicians are, after all, workers whose creative output is routinely extracted and exploited by music labels, financial intermediaries, and, today, streaming services<\/a>. It\u2019s hard to fault them for trying to regain control of their own work, as Van Morrison and Taylor Swift have famously attempted.<\/p>\n That the musicians are wealthy and powerful is notable, of course, but it doesn\u2019t negate a principle long held on the Left: that exploiting labor, creative or otherwise, and depriving workers of their output is anathema to a socially solidaristic society. But then so is leveraging the endless securitization of creativity, or anything else, to make bank. And yet, the model works.<\/p>\n The contemporary \u201cresurgence<\/a>\u201d of securitized music catalogues includes deals involving The Beatles, Justin Bieber, and Lady Gaga, artists who are as much brands and commodities as they are performers. Their ability \u2014 and that of their peers \u2014 to generate steady returns is real. As Michelle Gasaway, David Eisman, and Blake Bainou wrote for Reuters<\/i><\/a> last year, the issuances between 2020 and 2024 surpassed $8 billion. They explain the appeal this way:<\/p>\n The consistent cash flows and long-term duration of music copyrights and royalty streams are increasingly being viewed as stable, long-term investments with diversification potential. This shift, particularly evident since 2020, is driven by several converging factors: the rise of streaming platforms, improved data transparency and expanded monetization channels.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n At its core, selling securitized music catalogues is just another form of selling intellectual property \u2014 property embedded in cultural, economic, and legal regimes that turn artistic output into exchangeable assets. The resemblance to NFTs is obvious enough that crypto enthusiasts have already asked,<\/a> \u201cBowie bonds hit the mainstream; can crypto leverage the tokenized IP model?\u201d The difference is that these bonds are tethered to more tangible streams of revenue than digital Beanie Babies or jumped-up JPEGs.<\/p>\n\n