> 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!)

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.

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!

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.

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.

>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.

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.

Picture it this way - Mercuriadis has bought a bunch of houses. Just like any landlord, he will have to invest some money and effort into repairs and marketing his properties. Some will rent for more than he expected, some less.

But once he gets renting, it's passive income. The problem is, can he make it to that point or did he buy houses that weren't sufficently rentable?

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.