Song royalties trading platform JKBX is officially live.
The platform’s arrival in the music business has been talked about a lot this year, with the company announcing in a press release last month that it is aiming to “become a transformative force in music and investing”.
The JKBX platform, co-founded by CEO Scott Cohen, (co-founder of The Orchard and formerly Chief Innovation Officer at Warner Music Group), will offer its users the ability to invest in Royalty Shares for compositions and sound recordings of hit songs.
By doing so, JKBX says it is “bringing high-value songs to millions of retail investors and music fans alike”.
Now that it’s officially online (as of Tuesday, September 12), JKBX allows its users to reserve (via non-binding indications of interest) Royalty Shares related to music assets of hit songs. These customers will be the first to be notified when the assets will be ready for purchase.
That’s ‘reserve’ rather than ‘buy’… for now – because JKBX is in the process of seeking regulated approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to sell music royalty streams to investors as a ‘Regulation A offering’.
In the fall, following SEC qualification, customers will then be able to purchase Royalty Shares of hit songs.
JKBX says that trading will officially begin on the platform later in the year, with final approval from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
At launch, JKBX features listings of hits written and recorded by various superstar songwriters and artists ranging from Beyoncé and Ryan Tedder, to Timbaland, the Jonas Brothers, Camila Cabello, Major Lazer, OneRepublic, Ed Sheeran, Louis Bell and many more.
Listings are organized in alphabetical order, by price per share, market cap, as well as by decade (2000s, 2010s), and genre.
If you wanted to buy shares in the composition of Sucker, for example, the US No.1 hit recorded by The Jonas Brothers and co-written by Ryan Tedder, Louis Bell, Homer Steinweiss and Joe Jonas, one share is priced at $28.41.
There are 97,613 Sucker composition royalty shares being offered with a Market Cap of $2.8 million and an estimated Royalty Share yield of 3.34%. The listing notes that the song has a two-Year Average Revenue of $97,716.00.
Signed-in JKBX account holders will also be able to view streaming metrics for listings from platforms including Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube, Pandora, as well as total stream counts.
Users will also be able to view additional info such as the composition’s ISWC (International Standard Musical Work Code).
JKBX also announced the launch of its Creator Program ahead of its official rollout this week.
According to JKBX, the program will give artists and songwriters the opportunity to receive ongoing payments for the music they helped make – even if they’ve already sold their rights or no longer own the rights in their catalog.
JKBX says it will pay a portion of revenue to artists and songwriters who sign up for the program.
For creators that join the program, JKBX builds a page showcasing them, their songs, careers, and other creator-centric content (merchandising, charities, etc.).
Commenting on the launch of the Creator Program this week, JKBX CEO Scott Cohen, said: “The JKBX Creator Program was designed to spread the wealth and treat artists and songwriters equitably. We firmly believe that the talent who create this indispensable art form that fuels us deserve that right.”
He added: “When a songwriter or producer sells the rights to their work, they do not need to get the consent from the original recording artists. We wanted to defy this industry norm and actively go out of our way to make the recording artists aware of the listings on our marketplace.”
The songs listed on JKBX – in which investors will potentially be able to buy slices of royalty income streams – will actually be offered by the company’s affiliate, Jukebox Hits Vol. 1 LLC.
This LLC (“Hits Vol. 1”) will work with music rightsholders, says JKBX, to “identify income-generating songs and determine which songs to offer on the [JKBX] platform”.
Willing rightsholders will then sell a percentage of their income interests from these songs to the Hits Vol. 1 LLC – before Hits Vol.1 subsequently sells separate portions of these income streams to fans and investors via JKBX.
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