Your Music Catalog Is Becoming a Financial Asset. Here's How to Use It Without Selling Your Masters.

Making a Scene Presents - Your Music Catalog Is Becoming a Financial Asset. Here's How to Use It Without Selling Your Masters.

The music business is discovering that a catalog can be more than a collection of recordings. It can become a source of funding, financial independence, and long-term opportunity. But as companies like Pipeline build a new market around music royalties, the question is whether working independent musicians will finally get access to the same financial tools available to larger music companies.

The independent music business has spent decades telling artists that their music has value, usually right before somebody else explains why they should own it. Record labels have offered recording budgets in exchange for master rights. Publishers have offered advances against songs. Investment companies have purchased catalogs from musicians who needed money today more than they needed royalty checks tomorrow. The deals have changed over the years, but the basic idea has remained stubbornly familiar. The people who control the money tend to end up controlling the music.

http://www.makingascene.org