5 ms·

Has he never heard of the Hunt Brothers and their attempt to corner the silver market? Supply & Demand dictates that prices can go higher than you are liquid.

by chiph 7y ago

Has he never heard of the Hunt Brothers and their attempt to corner the silver market? Supply & Demand dictates that prices can go higher than you are liquid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday

fastball 7y ago
With songs though, they'll generate revenue while you're sitting on them. Silver doesn't do that.
- cgriswald 7y ago
  > With songs though, they'll generate revenue while you're sitting on them. How, exactly? I'm fairly certain most of a songs revenue is made by the first year. To go beyond that, you've got to get your song back in the public mind. > Silver doesn't do that. You can certainly borrow against the value of the silver to fund low risk investments.
  - djaychela 7y ago
    > How, exactly? I'm fairly certain most of a songs revenue is made by the first year. To go beyond that, you've got to get your song back in the public mind. Bass player with a 70s pop star who's still working and making music here.... I know that his hit songs still generate a significant amount of income for him (I'm not giving figures, but I would be more than happy if I had that much coming in for a full time income, let alone as passive income 50 years later). The songs get airplay, and get used in adverts and so on, and that generates income that I'd certainly be very happy to have. (I don't, I'm just a hired hand, very late to the party!)
    - cgriswald 7y ago
      That's kind of my point. Getting airplay and being in adverts helps keep his song in the public mind which generates income from the song. He may see it as passive income, but people are doing things to keep that income going. I'm also guessing he didn't start out eight figures in the hole by purchasing his songs from someone else.
      - djaychela 7y ago
        Sorry, I should have been clearer about my point - his songs have had a 'long tail' - most of the money wasn't made in the first year. He didn't start out 8 figures in the hole, but he has spent a LOT of time getting the money he was owed due to being ripped off by managers doing dodgy deals - every story he tells me is jaw-dropping and you just can't believe people would act like that, but they do. Repeatedly!
      - 1123581321 7y ago
        Passive income typically refers to whether the owner of the income-generating asset needs to put in a significant amount of regular effort to generate the income, not whether anyone in the value chain does.
        cgriswald 7y ago
        The question wasn't about whether anyone in the value chain gets passive income, but whether the songs generate revenue 'by sitting on them.' If you're going to invest in either silver or songs with the intention of doing nothing, which are you going to invest in? The experiences of a 70's pop star getting royalties are not equivalent to what Mercuriadis will have to do to produce revenue from his investors' investments.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - superhuzza 7y ago
        >He may see it as passive income, but people are doing things to keep that income going. That's literally what passive income is. For example, if I rent out farmland to someone, most of it's value will probably come from the fact it can be farmed. It still requires effort to farm that land, but not my effort. For me, it's passive income. Same thing with music, whoever rents the rights must put in the effort to make it worth renting.
        cgriswald 7y ago
        I'm not sure how to respond to your post as you've made my point: The songs Mercuriadis has purchased the rights to are not passive income for him. See my response to your sibling poster.
  - fastball 7y ago
    I don't know where you're getting your loans, but around here the cost of interest on the loans is going to be higher than my return on low risk investments.
kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
I don't think you can really corner the market for songs, people can just make new songs. Also if you don't have a lot of media clout besides owning some pop songs IP there's nothing you can do to keep the popular taste aligned to your music portfolio.
yorwba 7y ago
He's not really trying to buy everything: > “We turn down 70% of what’s offered to us, and oftentimes we make the first move in finding writers whose catalogs aren’t publicly for sale,” he says. > Ultimately, his goal with Hipgnosis — which went public on the London Stock Exchange in June 2018 — is to own 15% to 20% of the overall publishing market. That's more like someone buying up the silver mining rights across large but carefully picked swathes of land. Then he rents those rights to miners for a fee he can use to buy even more mining rights.

by chiph 7y ago

fastball 7y ago

With songs though, they'll generate revenue while you're sitting on them. Silver doesn't do that.

cgriswald 7y ago
> With songs though, they'll generate revenue while you're sitting on them. How, exactly? I'm fairly certain most of a songs revenue is made by the first year. To go beyond that, you've got to get your song back in the public mind. > Silver doesn't do that. You can certainly borrow against the value of the silver to fund low risk investments.
- djaychela 7y ago
  > How, exactly? I'm fairly certain most of a songs revenue is made by the first year. To go beyond that, you've got to get your song back in the public mind. Bass player with a 70s pop star who's still working and making music here.... I know that his hit songs still generate a significant amount of income for him (I'm not giving figures, but I would be more than happy if I had that much coming in for a full time income, let alone as passive income 50 years later). The songs get airplay, and get used in adverts and so on, and that generates income that I'd certainly be very happy to have. (I don't, I'm just a hired hand, very late to the party!)
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    That's kind of my point. Getting airplay and being in adverts helps keep his song in the public mind which generates income from the song. He may see it as passive income, but people are doing things to keep that income going. I'm also guessing he didn't start out eight figures in the hole by purchasing his songs from someone else.
    - djaychela 7y ago
      Sorry, I should have been clearer about my point - his songs have had a 'long tail' - most of the money wasn't made in the first year. He didn't start out 8 figures in the hole, but he has spent a LOT of time getting the money he was owed due to being ripped off by managers doing dodgy deals - every story he tells me is jaw-dropping and you just can't believe people would act like that, but they do. Repeatedly!
    - 1123581321 7y ago
      Passive income typically refers to whether the owner of the income-generating asset needs to put in a significant amount of regular effort to generate the income, not whether anyone in the value chain does.
      - cgriswald 7y ago
        The question wasn't about whether anyone in the value chain gets passive income, but whether the songs generate revenue 'by sitting on them.' If you're going to invest in either silver or songs with the intention of doing nothing, which are you going to invest in? The experiences of a 70's pop star getting royalties are not equivalent to what Mercuriadis will have to do to produce revenue from his investors' investments.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - superhuzza 7y ago
      >He may see it as passive income, but people are doing things to keep that income going. That's literally what passive income is. For example, if I rent out farmland to someone, most of it's value will probably come from the fact it can be farmed. It still requires effort to farm that land, but not my effort. For me, it's passive income. Same thing with music, whoever rents the rights must put in the effort to make it worth renting.
      - cgriswald 7y ago
        I'm not sure how to respond to your post as you've made my point: The songs Mercuriadis has purchased the rights to are not passive income for him. See my response to your sibling poster.
- fastball 7y ago
  I don't know where you're getting your loans, but around here the cost of interest on the loans is going to be higher than my return on low risk investments.

kaffeemitsahne 7y ago

I don't think you can really corner the market for songs, people can just make new songs. Also if you don't have a lot of media clout besides owning some pop songs IP there's nothing you can do to keep the popular taste aligned to your music portfolio.

yorwba 7y ago

He's not really trying to buy everything: > “We turn down 70% of what’s offered to us, and oftentimes we make the first move in finding writers whose catalogs aren’t publicly for sale,” he says. > Ultimately, his goal with Hipgnosis — which went public on the London Stock Exchange in June 2018 — is to own 15% to 20% of the overall publishing market. That's more like someone buying up the silver mining rights across large but carefully picked swathes of land. Then he rents those rights to miners for a fee he can use to buy even more mining rights.