Young Buck Required To Give Up Trademarks, Royalties and Copyrights

Whether you’re a music industry insider or a fan, listen up: rapper Young Buck’s intellectual property, including song compositions and royalties, can be yours.

The IP is going up for sale as part of Young Buck’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation, which a judge ordered the rapper into last year after he couldn’t come up with a viable business plan. Now, bankruptcy trustee Jeanne Burton is in charge of selling off Young Buck’s assets, including all of the rapper’s IP.

According to court papers, that includes “trademarks and copyrights, all masters, compositions, royalties, rights and licenses owned by debtor and all rights of publicity owned by debtor.” Burton couldn’t be reached to elaborate.

Intellectual property expert Gabe Fried told Bankruptcy Beat that buyers, particularly music industry folks, are interested in masters because they give the owner the ability to re-release songs and license the content for third-party use (like for advertising). And royalties entitle the owner to specified revenue from distribution or airplay of the songs.

That doesn’t mean a portfolio of music-related IP is an instant money-maker, however.

“It needs some continued investment to maintain its performance and grow,” said Fried, chief executive of Hilco Streambank, which specializes in liquidating such intangible assets as intellectual property.

The best buyer may be someone in the music industry who knows how to squeeze every bit of value possible from the assets, he said.

“Strategic buyers will know their business and will understand the synergy that this portfolio of products can provide for them,” he said.

Burton is proposing to sell the intellectual property at a May 14 auction at the Nashville law firm of Harwell Howard Hyne Gabbert & Manner. First, though, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Nashville, Tenn., must sign off on the auction proposal.

The move will free up David Darnell Brown—the rapper’s real name—for a fresh start. That fresh start could come with none other than G-Unit, the record label he’s still tied to but hasn’t recorded for due to a failing out with label founder 50 Cent. Young Buck recently said he’s negotiating a possible return with the label.