Sep 25, 2017 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/n...tion-off-portion-of-rappers-royalties-w504156 Investors will soon be able to purchase shares of Eminem's "My Name Is," "Lose Yourself" and every other song he released from 1999 to 2013 on an exchange much like the stock market, at a minimum of $2,250. The rapper's former production duo, the Funky Bass Team (aka FBT Productions), signed Eminem years before he turned into a superstar, and will auction portions of his future song royalties in October as part of a new company called Royalty Flow. "If you own any Apple stocks, for instance, it's exactly the same," Matthew Smith, head of Royalty Exchange, the Denver company running the auction, tells Rolling Stone. "Not only do you potentially get to earn along with Eminem's catalog, but you also win the ultimate bragging rights to say 'hey, I own that!' anytime you hear one of his songs." See New Trailer for Eminem-Produced Battle Rap Film 'Bodied' The Eminem catalog is among the first of what Smith and others expect to be a new way for fans to invest in musicians and songs. With streaming revenues expected to boom over the next few years, the returns could become substantial. Royalty Exchange has already sold shares of Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again," Chris Brown's "Drunk Texting" and the Ariana Grande-Lil Wayne track "Let Me Love You" as part of investment packages, some for as much as $71,000. The portion of "See You Again," made available by a background singer who owned part of the recording rights, generated $11,372 before it went on sale through Royalty Exchange — and Eminem has far more revenue potential. "With that big growth, there's an opportunity for investors to participate," Smith says. Eminem declined to comment for this story, though one of his reps said he was "not consulted" about the upcoming investment package. "Eminem is not involved in any deals for the sale of recording royalties and has no connection to this company," the rep tells Rolling Stone. One music-business expert argues tearing apart an artist's catalog and selling it piecemeal, without involving him, is disrespectful. "It starts to look like human slavery," says Aram Sinnreich, an American University media professor and author of The Piracy Crusade. "For Joe Investor, sure, it's no more or less meaningful than any other kind of commodity traded on exchanges — but we need to think about what kind of commodity we want human expression to be. It's very different than iron ore or rare earths or something like that." A rep for Jeff and Mark Bass of FBT Productions, though, responds that publishers and record labels constantly profit off artists' work and Royalty Flow is just another way of doing that. Joel Martin, FBT's manager, says the company considered selling its catalog to a bigger company within the music business but ran into roadblocks. "They wanted to buy the controlling rights," he recalls. "This is way more attractive." Eminem worked with the Bass brothers for years, until, as Jeff Bass said in 2013, "Life just moves on. It's not like [Eminem] said, 'Jump! You’re fired.' It was just, 'I'm gonna go in a different direction.' 'Cool, I wish you the best of luck.'" Royalty Flow will file for its initial public offering on Monday; after three weeks, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will decide whether to approve the filing, and if it does, investors can buy in for 150 shares or more at the minimum $2,250 price. Later this year, those investors will be able to buy and sell shares on a public exchange. When it's all over, investors will own either 15 or 25 percent of FBT's Eminem royalties as part of a broader package that could eventually include other artists' songs. "You're going to find a class of artists that will certainly be looking into this," Martin says. "[They'll] find out the real value of their income streams, as opposed to going to [major labels] Sony or EMI and taking a deal that looks good but may not be the best deal."
Sep 27, 2017 That's pretty disrespectful of the Bass Bros to do that to Em. Em's camp made an effort to put out an official statement against this, which they rarely do... so I doubt he's happy about it. Treating his music like a commodity to the highest bidder... That's wack. They must be broke. I wonder what this means for that music too?... If it's public property, does that mean a board can decide where to use Em's music and s---? I wonder how that works. Could be f---ing wack for Em. Although, he doesn't seem to have much respect for his music nowdays anyway. It's been in pretty much every trailer since 2015.
Sep 27, 2017 Comletely agree! f---ing leech move to the highest degree. Basically taking advantage of em signing a bs contract with them back in the day, and they're still trying to eat off of him to this day. It's a shame because as a team, creatively, they can'ty be beaten in the studio. Sucks for the music's sake, because reading between the lines, it's kinda obvious now that they'll never work again with one another. b--- go my hopes of a reconciliation for this new album then.
Sep 27, 2017 The royalties and rights are separate for controlling where music is used in media right?
Sep 27, 2017 Don't know much about this sort of thing but the people who invest would only profit from it right? There would be no risk of losing money?
Sep 27, 2017 to everyone saying this is really disrespectful, dont you think they tried to sell those shares to eminem first??? eminem not wanting to buy his own shares should tell you everything you need to know about the value of current eminem catalog.
Sep 28, 2017 I can't possibly see how, to be honest. Eminem is not a business. He just is considered a genius for the work he's done and it's already proven to last generations, as all good music does, there's almost no risk of it just having 0 or less value than now... over time. It will go up and down all the time depending on his popularity of the time, visibility etc. but in the long-run, I can't see how anybody could seriously lose money on this. It's not really a gamble. Great investment, tbh.
Sep 28, 2017 no one would ever sell you an investment where you cant lose money unless theyre making more out of the deal than you are. in this case not only theres a chance you can lose money in the long term,the chances are pretty high since something like the eminem music catalog would only be sold with a huge premium attached to it thanks to the notoriety owning a share of it would bring. the only way I can see this deal being a bad deal for the bass bros is if they have money problems(really doubtful) or if they own shares of the business/site that is used to sell the share on and they are using those shares to promote the business. the money lost in the long run would be seen as marketing expenses.
Sep 28, 2017 Y'all stupid. They basically just asking you to invest in them, and get guaranteed payoff from the royalties. You actually won't own he royalties. Basically they want cash up front and can guarantee to pay you from here on out. Unlike a real IPO the money goes to them instead of the company, so if people keep investing to get "shares" and your share decreases they still making bank while you get no difference in pay off.
Sep 28, 2017 This isn't an "investment" this is basically giving the Bass Brothers a loan that is guaranteed to pay off in bits over time
Sep 28, 2017 Sounds like a borderline pyramid scheme, you don't actually "own" s---. If you participate in this you're an off-brand loaner and absolutely no part of the 'Eminem' machine, and there's no guarantee at all about your future because there's no cooperation with the Eminem brand and you as an investor. Meaning if the Eminem brand capsizes and Marshall Mathers decides to go into hiding for the next 30 years and never release or promote s--- how much are you really going to get back? I would only do it if I had a couple thousand dollars of loose change hanging around - which I don't.
Sep 28, 2017 This is all royalties off old Eminem songs only, it's a guaranteed pay off. The problem is they are passing this off as you owning them. You loan them the money upfront, you get paid off slowly via a percent of the royalties.
