Psycho Teddy + More - Sound Recording Royalties

In 2007, "Psycho Teddy" was a mobile phone ringtone. A novelty dance track voiced by a cartoon teddy bear. Fifteen years later, it came back. Today that one recording, in its original and video-mix versions, earns more than fifteen times what it did in 2023. Its royalties climbed from a few hundred dollars that year to nearly $6,000 in 2024, and held near that level through 2025. The song didn't change. The internet did.

The comeback came through "animation memes": short homemade character animations, often set to the song's German-language version, that users began sharing across TikTok and YouTube around 2024. As the videos multiplied, the streams followed. Streaming is now 91% of the catalog's last twelve months, and the audience is global, about 48% from the United States, roughly 16% from China, and the rest running through the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Brazil, Mexico and a long international tail.

That one recording now drives close to 96% of the catalog. A song carried by a meme is carried by attention, and attention moves. The surge has already crested, softening about 6% against the prior twelve months as the lead recording eases back from its 2024 peak.

For an investor, the case is contrarian but grounded. Nearly eighteen years on, this catalog found a new global audience and grew its earnings more than fifteenfold in a single year. Proof that a song this old can still catch fire.

"Psycho Teddy" (2007) is a novelty dance-pop track credited to a fictional cartoon character of the same name, released by Sony BMG as both a mobile ringtone and a single. It reached No. 5 on Australia's ARIA singles chart in 2008, faded, and returned to prominence in the 2020s as the sound behind a widely shared online animation-meme trend. The catalog holds the original recording plus several versions — a video mix, a remix, club and radio edits, and a German-language version.

Rounding out the catalog are recording royalties from other Sony Music Australia releases of the same era. Several come from Jessica Mauboy's double-platinum 2008 debut album Been Waiting, including "Because," "Let Me Be Me," "Been Waiting" and "Breathe." Another is Shannon Noll and Natalie Bassingthwaighte's 2006 charity single "Don't Give Up," a cover of the Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush song that reached No. 2 on the ARIA chart.

Exchange Rates. Royalties for this asset are reported by Sony Austrailia in Australian dollars (AUD). To calculate royalty payments in U.S. Dollars (USD), Royalty Exchange applies the average historical exchange rate for the distribution month (via X-rates.com).

Future royalties will be paid to Royalty Exchange in AUD converted to USD upon receipt, and then paid in USD to the buyer. The receiving bank may increase the exchange rate by up to 2.5% as a transaction fee.