Why ERC-4626 yield vaults make copyrights a real financial asset class

A long-overdue shift in value recognition

Copyright has been viewed primarily as a legal or creative entitlement for decades. With Bowie bonds, David Bowie launched the first asset-backed securities that allowed investors to receive income from the future royalties of Bowie’s music catalog. These securities had a 10-year maturity and offered an annual interest rate of 7.9% (rest assured, it’s NOT boring)…

In today’s digital economy, it is increasingly clear that copyrights are also financial instruments. They generate predictable, real-world income through streaming, licensing, and synchronization royalties.

Despite this, creators remain underpaid, and investors are largely excluded. Delayed payments, fragmented royalty systems, and opaque rights management have made it difficult to unlock the full economic value of creative work. This inefficiency is no longer tolerable — it is obsolete.

It is time to reclassify copyrights as financial assets. Thanks to advances in blockchain infrastructure, this transition is not only possible but also overdue. One of the most important steps in this transformation is the adoption of ERC-4626 yield vaults, a standardized, transparent way to manage tokenized, income-producing assets.

ERC-4626: The foundation for yield from creativity

ERC-4626 is a technical standard that makes managing digital assets that earn income easier. It defines how people can deposit these assets into secure vaults, receive tokens representing their share, and automatically earn returns over time.

When applied to royalty-bearing copyrights, this model becomes a powerful enabler. ERC-4626 vaults allow tokenized royalty streams to be pooled, managed, and optimized. Participants — whether creators or investors — can deposit their royalty tokens into a vault, receive proportional shares, and earn returns as content generates revenue. Because the vault follows a standard, it integrates easily with DeFi platforms, secondary markets, and reporting tools.

Standardization is essential. Without it, every royalty vault would be isolated, creating complexity and incompatibility. With ERC-4626, creative assets become interoperable across financial tools, enabling transparency, liquidity, and automation for all participants.

The role of Copyrighted-as-a-Service (CaaS)

To make ERC-4626 applicable to creative industries, more than a vault is needed. Supporting infrastructure for tokenization, licensing, and rights enforcement must also be provided. This is the role of Copyrighted-as-a-Service (CaaS).

CaaS platforms reimagine copyrights not merely as legal entitlements, but as data-driven, income-generating assets. By integrating blockchain registration, smart contract licensing, and AI-powered content monitoring, CaaS automates the complexity traditionally associated with copyright administration.

In a CaaS framework:

• Creators register their work on-chain and receive tokens representing ownership and royalty rights.
• Smart contracts manage usage permissions and automate payments.
• Royalty tokens can be staked into ERC-4626 vaults for fractional ownership and shared yield.

This turns what was once a static right into a dynamic, monetizable instrument, ready for capital markets and accessible to creators of all sizes.

NIM as a working example

The New Internet Media (NIM) ecosystem — an integrated platform designed to help creators register, manage, and monetize their work — demonstrates how this vision operates in practice.

Through its CopyrightChains infrastructure and Power of Content (PoC) staking model, NIM enables:

• On-chain registration and metadata validation
• Token issuance (e.g., CopyrightShares) for fractional royalty rights
• ERC-4626 yields vaults for optimized royalty distribution
• AI agents for real-time monitoring and infringement detection

The result is a system that is faster, fairer, and more transparent. Creators receive royalties in real time instead of waiting months. Investors can purchase fractions of rights instead of entire catalogs and receive passive income from real-world use.

For creators: A new path to value

For independent artists and content creators, the ERC-4626 and CaaS model offers a practical alternative to traditional intermediaries. It allows for direct monetization, transparent reporting, and greater control over their intellectual property.

It also opens entirely new revenue models. Royalty tokens can be sold, staked, or licensed. Content can be promoted via PoC staking. Vault shares can be used for financing or to join collective royalty pools. What was once a one-time transaction becomes an ongoing income stream.

For investors: A real-world asset class emerges.

For investors, ERC-4626 vaults backed by copyright royalties offer an attractive combination of yield, diversification, and resilience. Returns in the 8–15% range are based on real economic activity, not speculation. These figures come from historical performance data across music and media markets, where established catalogs have shown stable cash flows.

Music consumption remains relatively steady even during economic downturns. As a result, royalties tend to be uncorrelated with equities and bonds, offering a valuable hedge in mixed portfolios.

This asset class is particularly relevant in inflation and low interest rates. It brings transparency through on-chain reporting, automated smart contract payments, and legal clarity via DAO frameworks and blockchain governance.

It’s time to treat copyrights like the assets they are

The tools now exist to treat copyrights as more than legal protections or cultural artifacts. This shift empowers creators with control, real-time earnings, and ongoing monetization, while providing investors access to a stable, yield-generating, and underutilized asset class. ERC-4626 vaults and CaaS platforms bring the structure, fairness, and interoperability the creative economy has long lacked.

It is time to stop treating royalties as incidental income and manage them as a serious yield. It is time to replace inefficiency and opacity with direct access and automation. It is time to recognize copyrights as real assets — and to give them the infrastructure they deserve.

ERC-4626 vaults provide not only technical efficiency but financial legitimacy. CaaS delivers the missing bridge between creativity and capital. Together, they make the transformation not just possible, but inevitable.