Duetti Review: What's Great, Good, Bad, & Ugly

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Duetti is a music finance company that buys the rights to master recordings, publishing, and royalties in part or in whole. Let’s take a look at what’s Great, Good, Bad, and Ugly about Duetti.

What’s Great About Duetti

Collaboration

Duetti is one of the few music finance companies that appears to approach artist funding as a partnership rather than a disguised loan.

The problem rights holders typically face in music finance is that most providers don’t actually offer funding, they offer advances. These advances are often high-interest, collateralized loans packaged to look artist-friendly.

You only receive what you’ve already proven you can earn, which may not be enough to meaningfully fund growth. Recoupment rates and fees can border on predatory lending. These are financial products that often feed on desperation, not collaboration.

With Duetti, rights holders gain a partner. Where many competitors operate like equity squatters, Duetti positions itself as a company that actively leverages its resources to grow the value of the catalogs it acquires.

Funding Based on Potential

In traditional catalog deals, payouts are rooted heavily in historical earnings projected across several years. This is largely because many private equity firms have no operational plan to increase the value of your music asset after acquisition.

Duetti’s model suggests it evaluates what your catalog could be worth under its management.

Example:

Imagine someone selling hats on the street, earning $1,000 per month. A partner with global distribution, marketing power, and retail relationships could realistically scale that business to $1 million per month. In exchange for facilitating that growth, they request a 50% equity stake.

The seller gives up half of a $1,000 business but potentially participates in half of a dramatically larger one.

That framing shifts the conversation from extraction to expansion.

What’s Good About Duetti

Marketing Support

• Spotify playlist network
• Sync opportunities
• Digital and physical paid advertising
• YouTube monetization and channel strategy
• Direct partnerships with TikTok

These are not vanity perks. If executed well, they directly impact catalog valuation.

Distribution and Catalog Management

Optimized exposure and revenue opportunities
The same infrastructure supporting marketing should also increase long-tail earnings.

Royalty navigation
Expect improved registrations and tighter collection across global sources.

Rights management
Protecting assets from unauthorized use is one of the fastest ways to plug revenue leaks.

Duetti is financially invested in the success of the catalogs it acquires. Alignment matters in deals like this.

What’s Bad About Duetti

It Acquires Rights

A traditional advance is typically a temporary equity stake. Once recouped, ownership returns to the rights holder.

With Duetti, the transaction is permanent.

Whatever is sold — 10%, 50%, or 100% — is gone forever.

This shifts the decision from short-term financing to long-term asset strategy. You are not borrowing against your catalog, you are selling part of your future.

What's Ugly About Duetti 

Unknowns: ⚫ TBD

There is still a lot we don’t know:

• Does Duetti offer buyback rights?
• Are there restrictions on how the catalog can be exploited?
• Can the rights holder enter additional partnerships without conflict?
• The company states it does not charge recoupment fees, but is that synonymous with having no recoupment rate?

Until these questions are answered clearly in contracts, the “Ugly” category remains unresolved.

Who Is This Best For?

• Artists with meaningful catalog traction
• Rights holders seeking liquidity without taking on debt
• Musicians comfortable trading ownership for growth
• Creators thinking in terms of asset strategy rather than short-term cash

This is likely not ideal for newer artists with limited leverage or anyone emotionally attached to maintaining full ownership at all costs.

Bottom Line

Duetti represents a more evolved version of music finance — one that at least signals operational involvement instead of passive ownership. But make no mistake: this is not funding. It’s a sale. And catalog sales are forever decisions. Reach out if you’ve worked with Duetti and have experience to share.