Bruce Springsteen sells his entire music catalogue for $500m

[tea for two]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainmen ... 680797.amp

"His deal follows similar sales by Bob Dylan, Blondie and David Bowie."

After ensuring family, extended family, bandmates, friends, wont have to worry financially rest of their lives.

Does the boss donate the rest...$400 Million... to Humanitarian causes including Animal Charities.
A person as Bruce would donate $400Million I feel. I would say this is the main reason he sold his life's Art.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I read the royalties income from his catalogue generates around $15m a year, so it's going to take Sony in excess of 30 years just to recoup their initial investment! And that's assuming younger people maintain the same level of interest in his music as the old fogies! I must be missing something in the financial viability of this deal....

[Arpangel]

And that's assuming younger people maintain the same level of interest in his music as the old fogies! I must be missing something in the financial viability of this deal....

So I’m an old fogie, great
Someone once offered me three hundred quid for the rights to all of my music he "was" a friend, but then I found out otherwise, I think it would have taken him about three hundred years to recoup his investment
I’d like to know why Bruce really did this, doesn’t sound like a good idea, his financial wealth must be quite considerable already.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Who wouldn't want to convert their life's work to provide secure futures for their offspring/ relatives/ friends when they're in your 70s? Makes perfect sense to me from his perspective. It's Sony's rationale that intrigues me.

[ken long]

Perhaps Sony have ideas on how to exploit the catalogue in a way that the Boss and his team haven't envisaged or decided not too for presumably "artistic integrity" reasons.

[Dave.P]

Waiting for the Nike Born To Run advert to come out.....

[ken long]

Good one!

[ken long]

"I'm on fire" for a spicy chicken wing sauce!

[Sam Spoons]

Watch out for the upcoming "The Boss" the movie which can now use all the original songs without further negotiation

[Dave.P]

Dancing In The Dark sponsored by your local utility company....

[Hugh Robjohns]

Perhaps Sony have ideas on how to exploit the catalogue in a way that the Boss and his team haven't envisaged or decided not too for presumably "artistic integrity" reasons.

Yes... that's the only think I could think of too.. but it could easily prove counter-productive. It will certainly be interesting to watch...

[Drew Stephenson]

Dancing In The Dark sponsored by your local utility company....

Ha!

[Drew Stephenson]

Who wouldn't want to convert their life's work to provide secure futures for their offspring/ relatives/ friends when they're in your 70s? Makes perfect sense to me from his perspective. It's Sony's rationale that intrigues me.

I wondered the same about the Bob Dylan and Paul Simon deals as well.
I'm assuming that the sale will include some work around for the reclaiming of copyright at 35 years (I think that was non-transferrable but I'm sure they'll have something in there), and the ridiculous ruling a few years ago about remastering generating a new copyright should give them plenty of options to keep extending the terms, but it still requires there to be an interested audience to exploit.
Are the boomers over-estimating their importance in the history of popular music?

[Arpangel]

Who wouldn't want to convert their life's work to provide secure futures for their offspring/ relatives/ friends when they're in your 70s? Makes perfect sense to me from his perspective. It's Sony's rationale that intrigues me.

I would have thought that he was wealthy enough to do that, with his royalties as well.
Sony, have always intrigued me, the way that firm is run, especially the music arm, it’s like the "mob" but worse.
When they bought CBS it was like two gangs doing a deal.

[BigRedX]

All the reports I have ready say that he's only sold the Master Tapes and his Publishing Rights, not his personal rights as a songwriter. He should still be getting a substantial income from those that he has kept.

[ken long]

what are his personal rights as a songwriter? thought that was publishing.

[BigRedX]

Traditionally songwriting royalties were split three ways (equally) between the writer (of the lyrics) composer (of the music) and the publisher (who produced and distributed the printed sheet music). Of course since then things have changed, and he various roles have changed and the boundaries between the writer and composer are a lot less clearly defined. A successful artist will also become their own publisher (as the role of a conventional publisher becomes less important the more well-known the artist/songwriter is).

Of course one of the other things that has changed is the percentage splits between all the parties that have an interest in a "work" (as the PRS define it). So it could be that the publishing share of Mr Springsteen's works is 100%, but I very much doubt it.

[Drew Stephenson]

All the reports I have ready say that he's only sold the Master Tapes and his Publishing Rights, not his personal rights as a songwriter. He should still be getting a substantial income from those that he has kept.

Which makes Sony's side of the deal even more weird.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Quite!

[Jorge]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainmen ... 680797.amp
After ensuring family, extended family, bandmates, friends, wont have to worry financially rest of their lives.
Does the boss donate the rest...$400 Million... to Humanitarian causes including Animal Charities.
A person as Bruce would donate $400Million I feel. I would say this is the main reason he sold his life's Art.

Another option, which people with Bruce Springsteen's progressive politics rarely choose, would be to purchase some national and state level politicians. The going price right now seems to be low, it is a buyer's market, although a few swing voters in the US Senate may hold out for relatively high prices. Go for it Bruce!

[Wonks]

As ABBA have recently got back together, maybe it now enables him to do the collaboration with them he's always wanted to do - "Björn in the USA".

[Arpangel]

All the reports I have ready say that he's only sold the Master Tapes and his Publishing Rights, not his personal rights as a songwriter. He should still be getting a substantial income from those that he has kept.

Which makes Sony's side of the deal even more weird.

Sony wouldn’t be doing this if there wasn’t money in it, I think they’ve got something major in the pipeline, that they’ve already agreed on with Bruce, and it suits both parties to go his way.
Would I care about Sony's decision being right or wrong? yeah, sure, if I were Bruce I’d just take the money and run.

[Music Wolf]

As ABBA have recently got back together, maybe it now enables him to do the collaboration with them he's always wanted to do - "Björn in the USA".

[Sam Spoons]

I've just come across this Rick Beato video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqHePc6Yu7w. The rights to Taylor Swift's back catalogue belonged to her record label and were sold to a venture capital company who then proceeded to block her from using the recordings. All legal and above board but she wasn't too happy so she came up with an interesting solution which was to re-record her first six albums...

[MarkOne]

I've just come across this Rick Beato video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqHePc6Yu7w. The rights to Taylor Swift's back catalogue belonged to her record label and were sold to a venture capital company who then proceeded to block her from using the recordings. All legal and above board but she wasn't too happy so she came up with an interesting solution which was to re-record her first six albums...

And put the effort into making better versions of them all, apparently.