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Money Tree Investing

Getting Rich With Music Royalties with Jon Gestal

Money Tree Investing

Money Tree Investing Podcast

Business, Investing

4.6733 Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2026

⏱️ 67 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Have you ever thought about getting rich with music royalties? Jon Gestal explains how music royalties function as an alternative investment and the complex ecosystem where songwriters, artists, publishers, and labels earn income from licensing, streaming, radio, and live performances. He shares how platforms like Royalty Exchange create liquidity by allowing creators to sell partial or full rights to those cash flows. Royalty streams vary in structure and stability, often following a lifecycle where earnings spike early and then settle into more predictable long-term income, making seasoned catalogs attractive for passive income investors seeking diversification from traditional markets.

We discuss...

  • Music royalties consist of multiple income streams, including performance, mechanical, and sound recording royalties.
  • Artists earn money from a mix of royalties, live performances, advances, and synchronization deals like TV, movies, and commercials.
  • Streaming platforms like Spotify pay royalties based on a share of revenue rather than a fixed rate per play.
  • Music catalogs typically follow a lifecycle where earnings spike early and then decline into a more stable, predictable long-term cash flow.
  • Older, "seasoned" catalogs tend to be more attractive to investors seeking consistent passive income.
  • Investors can purchase royalties from individual songs, groups of songs, or entire catalogs depending on the seller's needs.
  • The growth of global streaming and emerging markets continues to expand the overall music royalty pool.
  • Technology and social media have changed how artists are discovered, but success remains just as difficult as before.
  • Artists today have more independence and flexibility, reducing reliance on traditional record label deals.
  • The conversation highlighted the increasing financialization of entertainment assets, including music, sports, and film.
  • Fractional ownership allows smaller investors access to royalties but often reduces returns due to multiple layers of fees.
  • "Vanity investing" and emotional attachment can influence decisions when investing in entertainment assets.
  • Music royalties can serve as a diversification tool since they are largely uncorrelated with traditional financial markets.

Today's Panelists:

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For more information, visit the full show notes at https://moneytreepodcast.com/getting-rich-with-music-royalties-jon-gestal-806 

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the Money Tree Investing Podcast.

0:04.8

Stock market, wealth, personal finance, value stocks, invest in your life.

0:10.8

Hello Smart Money Tree podcast listeners. Welcome to this week show. My name is Kirk Chisholm.

0:14.6

I'll be your host. Today, I'm joined with John Gestell. I'm doing you, John. I'm good, Kirk. Thanks for having me.

0:20.1

We're going to be talking about some interesting alternative assets today.

0:23.5

John, why do you tell us a bit about your background for the listeners who aren't familiar

0:26.5

with who you are?

0:27.5

I run the investor relations side of royalty exchange, which is the largest marketplace for

0:33.1

buying intellectual property assets.

0:36.4

Primary asset you'll find there is music. Just naturally,

0:39.8

the royalty ecosystem for music is the most common. But you'll find out this stuff too.

0:44.2

We branched to all forms of intellectual property. I've been doing that for about seven years,

0:48.7

basically through the royalties boom and a lot of interesting music industry currents. And so that's what we do.

0:57.6

Tell me a little bit about how it works with music. I mean, we've seen a lot of things recently

1:02.1

in the news about some artists catalogs being sold, even some current artist, which is still

1:08.7

kind of weird to me. Tell listeners a little bit about this.

1:11.2

Like, how does that work? How do the royalty exchanges work with music? So, as I'm sure,

1:16.1

most can imagine, it's a pretty complex system of reporting. So basically, how it works is when

1:22.8

someone creates music, everyone who helped create that music, whether they're a songwriter,

1:27.4

a singer, a singer,

1:28.1

a producer, or whatever they might be. They all get a share of the royalties generated by that

1:33.7

song or book or whatever it might be. And those splits can differ in size between, you know,

...

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