Catalog acquisitions and Web3 innovations: Perhaps the two music industry stories that have made the most headlines in recent years.
Now, at Ditto Music’s sister company Opulous, they are being combined.
To summarize: Opulous is an NFT and decentralized funding platform focused on the music industry, powered on the Algorand Blockchain.
To date, it has allowed individual investors to capture fractions of royalty streams on new releases from artists like Lil Pump – competing with the likes of 3LAU’s Royal.
Opulous has also launched its own crypto token – OPUL – which is currently trading at around $0.15 per token.
This week, Opulous launched a new business venture, one it says will see it “take on companies like Hipgnosis” by buying full catalogs from artists and songwriters.
It plans to bankroll these acquisitions via a new music acquisition project available to the masses. The project – or ‘Opulous Royalty Vault’ – operates via a new set of tokens called OVAULT.
Investors in music copyrights will be able to buy OVAULT and then stake (i.e. hold) these tokens to receive “daily rewards”, which the company says will be largely derived from the underlying music copyrights
This is how the project will work in practice: Opulous will acquire music catalogs that generate what the company calls “sustainable income”. These directories will then be added to the ‘Opulous Royalty Vault’ and minted in OVAULT tokens. Individual investors will then be able to purchase these OVAULT tokens using OPUL tokens, before staking their OVAULT tokens to receive the promised rewards.
Said “rewards” are designed to tempt investors not to sell their OVALUT tokens, and instead use them to earn stable rewards, similar to returns from more traditional music copyright investment.
According to Opulous’ founder and CEO Lee Parsons, the OVAULT project has already spent a seven-figure fee acquiring rights/revenue streams related to two catalogs of “iconic evergreen artists”.
Those artists are not being named, but Parsons said they have received eight Grammy nominations between them.
Parsons said: “Music copyright is perhaps the fastest growing asset in the investment space, but until now has only been available to large entities such as banks and family trusts. Through this project, Opulous gives everyone the opportunity to invest in music and enjoy regular rewards.
“Our plan is to grow Opulous into one of the world’s largest music rewards programs.”
Lee Parsons, Opulous
“Our plan is to grow Opulous into one of the world’s largest music rewards programs. Opulous will give everyone the chance to share music, support their favorite artists and enjoy many types of rewards.”
The OVAULT project is led by ex-Kobalt CEO Jay Moore, Chief Investment Office at Opulous.
As Kobalt’s senior director of investments, Moore was heavily involved in the Kobalt-managed copyright portfolio “Fund 2,” which was acquired by a vehicle financed by KKR for $1.1 billion last year.
Last November, Lil Pump raised $500,000 by selling shared ownership of revenue streams in his single track. Mona Lisa (feat. Soulja Boy), via Opulous and Crypto site Republic.
A month earlier, Opulous entered into an NFT partnership with the technology division of Japan’s largest music streaming service, LINE.
In Q1 of this year, Opulous announced that it intended to “vigorously defend us” against what it called “meritless claims” by rapper Lil Yachty, who accused the company of using his name and likeness without permission.Music business worldwide
