Beyond the Catalog: The KISS Deal and the Future of Music IP

What happens to a rock band’s legacy when the touring stops forever? 

When Pophouse acquired the KISS catalog, brand, name, image, and likeness rights, they didn’t just buy music. They bought the blueprint for keeping one of rock’s most iconic bands alive indefinitely through digital avatars, biometric data, and AI-driven live experiences. This deal, built on the success of ABBA Voyage and developed in partnership with Industrial Light and Magic, may be the most forward thinking music IP acquisition ever negotiated. 

In this episode, Dmitri unpacks it all with Spencer Klein, chair of Morrison Foerster’s Global Mergers and Acquisitions Group, who represented KISS co-founders Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley in the deal. Together, they explore how music catalog valuation is expanding beyond audio rights into merchandise, transmedia storytelling, and immersive concert experiences. They also dig into what this means for the broader music industry as artificial intelligence and digital avatar technology begin reshaping how artist IP is valued, monetized, and preserved for future generations.

Whether you follow KISS, entertainment law, or the future of artist brands, this episode offers a rare inside look at how the music industry is evolving beyond the limits of what any band can do in a lifetime. 

The news

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• Neptune Raises $1.5 Million to Scale Digital Music Education in the UAE

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Episode Transcript

Machine transcribed

[00:00:00] Dmitri: So our topic today is, the KISS catalog acquisition, which included name and likeness rights and what it means for IP going forward. I'm super excited. We haven't had any topic like this on the podcast before. Our guest, Spencer Klein, is the chair of Morrison Foerster's. Global Mergers and Acquisitions Group.

Spencer's a valued partner at the Music Tectonics Conference, helping us bring together a diverse group of investors interested in music, tech, and related markets. Spencer focuses his practice on M&A transactions and related matters, and has advised more than 200 successfully. Closed mergers, tender and exchange offers, stock and asset acquisitions, divestitures and joint ventures.

And as I said, we're gonna focus our conversation on pop house's, acquisition of the catalog brand and IP of the rock band kiss, and what it means for immersive technology, ip, and the value of name image and likeness, and music and entertainment. Spencer represented KISS and its co-founders, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley in the transaction.

Welcome Spencer.

[00:01:01] Spencer: Well, thanks for having me, Dimitri.

[00:01:03] Dmitri: Awesome. Great. So let's get straight to it. What was the deal that Pop House did with Kiss?

[00:01:08] Spencer: Yeah, so, pop House, um, did it really of a first of its kind deal with kiss.

I mean, number one, they bought the music catalog, which is in and of itself. A fascinating deal. Not particularly unique, right? Lots of people buy music catalogs and, and there's a very well established market for doing that and a lot of buyers from music catalogs, and I'm sure we'll come back and talk about that more later.

 and that part of the deal was interesting in and of itself because you've got a. band that was producing music for 50 years, and, you know, went through lots of ups and downs and trials and tribulations and people leaving the band and entering the band. So, you know, doing the catalog deal itself would've been interesting.

But what made this really fun and unique and a deal that, really hadn't been done before? I is, the. Aspects of KISS that are unique and that Pop House really wanted to make sure it had the ability to exploit, right? Everybody knows that, whether you're a fan of Kiss's music or not. Everyone knows, um, and recognizes kiss, right?

 the face paint designs, the characters are instantly recognizable. And, the theatrics of a KISS concert is something that, you know, everybody is familiar with. And, really what this deal was about was Pop House, having a vision. For how to bring KISS and the KISS music into the next generation.

Right. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, who are two of the founders and the, two that kept the band alive, um, and who owned all the rights to the KISS ip, are in their seventies and they stopped touring at the end of 2023. And, Pop House had a vision for how to ensure that KISS and its legacy lived on forever, regardless of the fact that Gene and Paul and the KISS Band would no longer be touring.

So that's kind of the, you know, the headline is, in addition to buying the catalog, pop House bought. Everything else related to kiss, including, um, the trademarks in the face paint designs, and, in the name and branding and the logo of kiss and, the name, image, and likeness of the band members.

 and in particular, they, working with Industrial Light and Magic, which is the group that produced it's George Lucas's. Laboratory that produced the Star Wars movies, they captured the biometric data, of the band members, including their movements and their facial expressions. And one of the things that, pop house plans to do is to create an avatar show where you'll be able to go.

see a KISS concert, and more than a KISS concert because KISS is more than that. but you'll be able to see a massive theatrical experience in a venue built for this purpose with the, biometric data that's been captured from the band members turned into digital avatars so that industrial light and magic can create this show and it's gonna be a pretty special.

Experience. So that's part of the pop house vision as well,

[00:04:31] Dmitri: right? So, so it's not just the traditional audio catalog deal with maybe a little bit of rights around using the name as you're monetizing the songs, but you're actually getting the, full image of an avatar basically. That's, that's what's unique, right?

[00:04:44] Spencer: Yes. And the right to use that biometric data as well, plus all of the other IP that goes along with, kiss, right? I mean. There are bands and then there are brands and KISS is both a band and a brand. And, and there's more, you know, more than just that. I see a question coming in that's really, interesting because there is a connection between KISS and ABBA Voyage.

 but you know, there are other acts that are like that. You know, Elvis is a brand, right? you know, there are things to exploit other than just the music and, you know, kiss in some ways maybe is the paradigm for that. Right. gene Simmons, I have a clip of Gene Simmons that I use. Sometimes when, you know, we wanna do presentations about the KISS deal and clients wanna learn more, we've got this PowerPoint deck that we use that would bore all of you.

And so we're not using it. But Gene, there's this clip of Gene Simmons saying, you know, if you zoom in on Mount Rushmore and you see Teddy Roosevelt, no one knows who he is, right? How many people are gonna recognize Teddy Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore? But you see the face of. A band member of KISS with the makeup on.

Everyone knows it's KISS immediately.

[00:06:00] Dmitri: Or, or the tongue.

[00:06:02] Spencer: Yeah. Or the tongue. Right. And that's true if you're in the United States, if you're in Europe, if you're in South America, it doesn't matter. Everyone knows those characters and, um, you know, that brand has real value, to the question by the way, about, ABBA Voyage.

Great question. ABBA Voyage was actually produced by Pop House. That was the test case for them, and it was incredibly successful. Continues to be incredibly successful. And they said, you know, ABBA Voyage is cool. Imagine what we could do with kiss. Right? And, and that was sort of the. part of the driving reason for them to do this.

So I hope I answered that question.

[00:06:41] Dmitri: Yeah. Yeah. So KISS did it because they're getting older, they're touring less, they're not all, I mean, they're not gonna stay around forever. That's, I mean, we've seen that already. and so this is a way to kind of like continue that estate and production as well as the cultural value.

So forth Pop House wanted to do a little replicate what they've done with Abba and build a whole new experience that keeps the band alive forever. Now through avatars on stage, right. is Pop House gonna create new content with this? I mean, that's the other thing that's interesting about the, about the, the rights that were acquired here, right.

Like, it's just like recreate, it's not the avatar cover songs or live performance covers by avatars. I'm calling 'em cover songs. 'cause it's avatars. Yeah. But they could actually create new songs, couldn't they?

[00:07:26] Spencer: They could, yeah. They could theoretically do that. and also when you, you know, there'll be an AI driven component of this too, which is you'll go to the concert, and there'll be some audience reaction.

And Paul Stanley will respond to that. He will be able to say something or act in a certain way based on the way people act in the audience. You know, just, you know, a level of technology that, is ever growing. And you know, the problem with doing a show like this is you do it today and tomorrow it's outdated.

Right? And, you know, what's gonna happen with the KISS show? And I've seen some of, Early work that they're doing on it, it's gonna launch in 2027. it makes ABBA voyage look like kids play. I mean, it's really dramatically advanced compared to that. But yeah, to your point, you know, these guys have egos, right?

And What happens when your career is over? This is an opportunity to participate in the creation of something that lasts forever. And where the next generation of KISS fans. You know, kiss has an incredibly loyal fan base. I'm one of 'em, by the way, in case you can't. Tell in my voice. I mean, I'm, I'm a huge KISS fan, so this was an unbelievable opportunity for me.

But, you know, they have an incredibly loyal fan base called the KISS Army, and they want the KISS Army to continue to enjoy KISS into the next generation and for their kids to do that, um, as well. and for, Paul and Gene and the other band members to really be able to live forever as the First Rock band to do that.

[00:08:59] Dmitri: Yeah. Interesting. I, you know, there's this technological piece of the story too. Like none of this could happen if Pop House hadn't have done all this development with Abba first.

[00:09:08] Spencer: Yeah.

[00:09:08] Dmitri: I'm sure as a lawyer it was kind of interesting and fun to think about how do you actually identify future proofing some of the rights around this.

Can you talk a little bit about the, technological changes that, kind of worked into this deal and, made it all make sense as well as made it kind of a unique deal.

[00:09:24] Spencer: Yeah, it's fascinating and I, I, I see actually on the line, not to do an advertisement here, but I see Anthony Ramirez, my partner is on with us, and Anthony is the IP lawyer who figured all this stuff out.

And so, and, and some of it was pretty challenging. You know, you've got, you know, X band members whose biometric data is not being captured, but who theoretically can be replicated. By the technology that now exists from

[00:09:53] Dmitri: wow

[00:09:53] Spencer: archival concert video. Right. What are the limits of doing that?

 it's really, it's a brave new world and that's just one example of some of the technology that exists today and some of the challenges created by that.

[00:10:10] Dmitri: Yeah.

 how does this type of deal shift the thinking about the value of ip? Because I mean, we always watch when a queen deal comes up for, for sale or one of these, any of these legendary legacy artists. you see these numbers and you're like, wow, there's a lot going on here. But now you're talking about kind of a whole other category of rights that allows for creating new art, new content, new recordings, new visuals, new concerts, even.

 I'm curious, how, how does this shift, how these deals go forward with the value of ip?

[00:10:42] Spencer: Yeah, and as you were asking that question, I saw that sun came in with a question that sort of overlapped so about valuation and I, There are limits to what I can talk about specifically around that.

 just given, you know, client confidences and the purchase price has never been. Publicly, revealed, although there's been speculation about that. But, know, really here, there are two different valuation exercises. There's the evaluation of the catalog and, catalog values. As you know, you inferred just now.

 a moment ago, Dmitri really exploded and you look at, you know, the Queen catalog. Britney Spears just sold her catalog actually yesterday to Mercury Wave. And you know, so there's, there's a lot of that activity going on and the multiples are really high, which of course drives more investment in the space and more artists looking to sell their catalog.

But, you know, there is sort of the valuation of the catalog and then there was all the extra piece, right? There's the, you know, the avatar show and everything else coming in the future. That's not. Complete today, and it's really hard to value that. So there's a component of value that relates to those future activities in which Gene and Paul will participate.

So I think that's about as far as I can go in getting into that detail. But there's a forward looking component that creates, you know, joint incentives to further create based on the existing iPay.

[00:12:15] Dmitri: Right. Suffice it to say that if you can create avatars that are gonna either perform works every night for a year in 20 or a hundred cities, or you can even have the rights for avatars who are creating new music.

If you have the rights to, I'm not speaking about the KISS deals specifically, but if you have the rights to the style of music, the voices of the artists, then all of a sudden you have a machine to create. Songs that would maybe appeal to the same people who already love the band.

[00:12:47] Spencer: Yeah.

[00:12:47] Dmitri: There would be a lot more potential revenue generation from that.

And so then that would go into an equation with valuation speaking speculatively, speaking aspirationally about what could happen in the future. It seems like all of that would be possible.

[00:12:59] Spencer: Absolutely. I, it's certainly technologically possible today to do it.

[00:13:04] Dmitri: Yeah. The other thing that's interesting about it is it becomes a transmedia conversation.

You know, there's always this question of like, how do you take what's now a lot of streaming feels a little bit like a loss leader. Audio streaming feels a little bit like a loss leader. not that everybody would agree with that. Rights holders might not agree with it. Streaming services might not agree with it, but it feels a little bit like, wow, that's your discovery mechanism.

Sure, you can make some money when you get. Pretty big at it, but really the big revenue comes from live performance and merch and brand deals and and other opportunities there. but, a way this avatar-ization of artists starts to give you transmedia, like now you're getting into TV and film in a way that has a much lower cost to produce and create, over time, and also an infinite lifespan of, of the art and what appears to be the artist, the performing artist at least.

[00:13:54] Spencer: Yeah. Well, and also that, that's it. You know, that all sounds very new. But in a way it's just an extension of what KISS has already done. and, and you know, KISS may be more than others, but, but others have done similar things too. Right? And, and again, this is part of the artist as brand, but there's Kiss branded comic books, and you know, there's a KISS movie with, the Scooby-Doo characters.

 right. They've done things that are different than. writing music, recording music, and then performing that music live. Now, they've always made a tremendous amount of money from touring, um, and that's, you know, where the value for them has been. But they were a merchandise machine and they've certainly entered into filmed entertainment and other aspects of brand extension in the past.

This'll take it to a whole different level.

Let us know what you think! Find us on LinkedIn, and Instagram, or connect with podcast host Dmitri Vietze on LinkedIn.

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Weekly episodes include interviews with music tech movers & shakers, deep dives into seismic shifts, and more.