2020年经济学人 歌曲版税投资热(2)（在线收听）

There are several reasons why music royalties seem attractive at the moment. Mr Martini believes investors are drawn in by a rate of return that is insulated from macroeconomic trends. Music rights offer a predictable stream of income—people tend to tune in no matter what the economy is doing. Owning a song is more fun than buying a slice of a company. And once they have been bought, songs need not require much attention.

有几个原因可以解释为什么现在的音乐版税看起来极具吸引力。马蒂尼认为，投资者是被与宏观经济趋势绝缘的回报率所吸引。音乐版权提供了一个可预测的收入来源——无论经济状况如何，人们都会听歌。拥有一首歌曲比购买一家公司的股份更为有趣。歌曲一旦被购买，就不需要太多关注。

Not everyone agrees that buying royalties should be a passive business, though. In 2018 a former manager of Iron Maiden and Guns N' Roses, Merck Mercuriadis, founded an investment company called Hipgnosis. More than 90% of the firm's shares are held by institutional investors, including axa, an insurer, and the Church of England. The aim is to improve the lot of songwriters, who do not have the same opportunities as performers to make money through tours and merchandise.

购买版税应该是一项被动的业务，然而并非所有人都这么认为。2018年，曾担任“铁娘子乐队”和“枪炮与玫瑰乐队”经理的默克·摩科瑞迪斯创建了一家名为“希普诺西斯”的投资公司。该公司90%以上的股份由包括保险公司安盛和英国国教在内的机构投资者持有。这样做的目的是为了改善许多词曲作者的处境，他们没有像表演者那样通过巡回演出和商品销售来赚钱的机会。

Hipgnosis has spent more than ￡650m ($870m) buying the rights to over 13,000 songs. It now owns a share of eight of the 25 most-played songs of all time on Spotify, a streaming platform, including tunes co-written with Ed Sheeran ("Shape of You") and Justin Bieber("LoveYourself"). In addition to the hits, Mr Mercuriadis also wants to boost returns from songs that have "been leftto languish" by big labels.

希普诺西斯公司已经花费了6.5亿多英镑(8.7亿美元)购买了超过1.3万首歌曲的版权。目前，在流媒体平台“声破天”上播放次数最多的25首歌曲中，有3首来自该公司，其中包括与艾德·希兰合作的《你的样子》以及与贾斯汀·比伯合作的《爱自己》。除了热门歌曲，摩科瑞迪斯先生还想提高那些被大唱片公司“抛弃”的歌曲的收益。

Hipgnosis seeks to promote its catalogue by trying to place them in films, TV programmes and streaming playlists. Since it went public in July 2018, the cumulative return on its net asset value is just shy of 40%. Music to investors' ears.

希普诺西斯公司试图通过把这些歌放在电影、电视节目和流媒体播放列表中来推广自己的目录。自2018年7月上市以来，其资产净值的累计回报率略低于40%，这对投资者来说是个好消息。