The legendary English band Pink Floyd, which revolutionised psychedelic and progressive rock, has finally sold off their recorded-music and name-and-likeness rights for approximately $400 million.
The band sold their music rights to the music label to Sony Music, reports ‘Variety’. The deal marks one of the largest of many in recent years, and apparently has finally concluded despite decades of ongoing infighting and bitter words between the band members, notably chief songwriters Roger Waters and David Gilmour; also involved are drummer Nick Mason and the estates of keyboardist Richard Wright and founding singer-songwriter Roger “Syd” Barrett.
As per ‘Variety’, the deal comprises recorded-music rights but not songwriting, which is held by the individual writers, as well as name-and-likeness, which includes merchandise, theatrical and similar rights.
While Pink Floyd was famously anonymous as personalities, presumably most if not all of the iconic artwork on their albums, which was largely designed by the British firm Hipgnosis, is included.
On a purely business level, the Pink Floyd recorded-music catalogue, not to mention its merchandising rights, is one of the most valuable in contemporary music, with classic albums like ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, ‘The Wall’, ‘Wish You Were Here’, ‘Animals’, ‘Meddle’, ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’, ‘More’ and more.
Sony has spent more than a billion dollars on catalogues from Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Queen’s non-North American rights in the past few years (with backing from investment firms like Eldridge Industries), and has never officially commented on the deals.
The catalogue had been in play for several years with a reported asking price of $500 million, and the group was close to a deal in 2022, but the bitter infighting between the band’s members, primarily over main songwriter Roger Waters’ controversial political statements against Israel and Ukraine, and in favour of Russia, have complicated the deal enormously and scared off a number of suitors.
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