Scott Cohen on his optimism for the music industry – and JKBX's 'transformative' launch

Welcome to the Music Business Worldwide podcast supported by
Voly Music.
Joining MBW founder, Tim Ingham, on this podcast is
Scott Cohen, the CEO of JKBX.

JKBX is a new platform that enables investors (including
so-called ‘retail investors’) to acquire royalty shares in hit
songs. It will, in future, also allow you to trade those royalty
shares by selling them to others.

JKBX launched in September and according to Bloomberg had over
$1.7 billion -worth of music assets secured. Right now on the
platform, JKBX is offering royalty shares in hit songs like Halo
performed by Beyoncé, Rumour Has It performed by Adele, Welcome
To New York performed by Taylor Swift, and many more.

However, as you read this, you can only reserve your acquisition
of royalty shares on JKBX. Before it completes any transaction,
the company is in the process of attempting to secure regulated
approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (aka the
SEC).

As well as its primary investor, Dundee Partners, JKBX has
reportedly attracted strategic investors including Spotify, Live
Nation, YouTube, Red Light Management and others. 

Things to know about Scott Cohen before we get into the podcast?
He is the co-founder of The Orchard – which he co-launched with
Richard Gottehrer in the second half of the nineties, before
selling it to Sony Music for a total of around $250 million,
partly in 2012 and partly in 2015.

Before joining JKBX, Scott was most recently Chief Innovation
Officer at Warner Music Group, where he kept his ear close to the
ground on tech such as artificial intelligence, the metaverse,
and blockchain.

On this podcast, we ask Scott about JKBX’s prospects, the
changing nature of technology’s involvement in music, and the
lessons he learned building the Orchard into a $250 million
company…