Bruce Springsteen sells entire music catalog for $500 million
The deal with Sony marks the largest price paid for an individual's music thus far
Aux News Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen, apparently learning nothing from Taylor Swift, has reportedly sold the master recordings and publishing rights to the entirety of his music catalog to Sony for a whopping $500 million. The company now owns 20 of the iconic artist’s work, including famed works Born To Run, The River, and Born In The U.S.A.
According to BBC, these master recording deals provide financial security to the artists and their estates. The companies who obtain the rights have lots to gain through film and TV licensing, merchandise, cover versions, and performance royalties. Last year, Springsteen’s discography earned around $15 million in revenue.
Other legendary artists who have made similar moves in the last few years include Bob Dylan, Blondie, Stevie Nicks, Shakira, Neil Young, and the estate of the late David Bowie. The price tag for Springsteen’s music is far higher than his counterparts, in fact, it may be the highest amount paid thus far for any musician’s catalog. One year ago, Dylan’s publishing rights went for $300 million to Universal Music Group. Nicks’ and Young’s catalogs sold for much less, at $100 million and $84 million, respectively.
Sony’s most recent acquisition consists of the rights to Paul Simon’s back catalog, for which they paid $250 million. Earlier this year, Rob Stringer, the chief executive of Sony Music, said the company has spent $1.4 billion in acquisitions in the last six months.
Springsteen, who’s just rounded the corner on 72 years of age, has been with Columbia Records (which runs under Sony Music) for the entirety of his five-decade career. Historically, the singer-songwriter has long-controlled the rights to his recordings. Not only that, he also owns the copyrights to his songwriting and acts as his own music publisher.
A public announcement about the transaction has not been made yet, and the specific terms of the deal remain undisclosed.
56 Comments
and he’s celebrating with a teeth-clenching rictus pseudo-smile.
I imagine that’s the face I’d also make when I shit my pants upon getting $500M.
That’s his resting rich face.
nice.
Or his besting rich face.
Besting rich face.
Now he can afford a good plastic surgeon instead of those guys in Slovakia.
He is seventy fucking two years old. I hope look half as good at that age.
Safe to say he ain’t ever gonna ride in no used car again.
His F-150 is in the shop so he has to borrow his wife’s Volvo and the guys down at Duffy’s all bust his balls…
Springsteen car commercials would be a trip. Chevy: Sprung from cages on Highway 9…
If they are bringing in $15M a year and he is 72, then half a billion is more than they would make in his lifetime unless he lives to be about 110. Forbes says his net worth before this was about $80M, so this makes a big difference in the total, if probably not in his lifestyle. Besides, he can probably come close to that $15M a year investing the proceeds from the sale.
Besides, he can probably come close to that $15M a year investing the proceeds from the sale.Oh absolutely. If he’s even mildly careful with the money he’ll die with a billion dollars in his bank account. With even a relatively simple investment like the S&P 500 ETF(which is up 27% year to date) at the start of this year he’d have made $135.6M by now.
He is going to have to pay taxes on the $500M and his agents probably get a healthy cut so it isn’t quite as easy as getting a 3% return on half a billion, but it shouldn’t be hard either, like you said.
Springsteen and Sony could probably avoid paying taxes entirely if they wanted to be dicks about it. Springsteen’s catalogue just needs to be in the name of a holding company, which he runs. He can then transfer control of the company to Sony, which doesn’t count as a sale. (This is pretty common in real estate.)Payment can be received offshore, where it isn’t taxed. He’d then only have to pay income tax on what he withdraws, and could even get around that by just purchasing everything in the name of the offshore company.
Bruce Springsteen, the morning after going on a $500 million Waffle House bender: “I’m ruined!”
Should have put it all in sandwiches
Where the hell did they come up with $80-million?? His net worth is way the hell beyond that. It’s repeatedly mentioned as being in the ballpark of $500-million already.
No offense to Sony, but I don’t see the value here. He only has a few tracks anybody covers and a bunch of his catalog doesn’t really lend itself to advertising. I can’t see any of his later records being consistent catalog sellers either.
They’re going to turn them all into NFTs in the Metaverse and quintuple their money.
It’s the new gold rush!“There’s NFTs in them thar blockchains!’
It looks like somebody at Sony just fucked up and gave him half a billion dollars for something that’s of very little value.
According to the article, they’re on pace to make their money back in 33 years.
But Sony’s also apparently on an aggressive acquisition spree, which I’m assuming gives them a ton of power in negotiations with existing streaming services. Hell, I’m expecting them to launch their own any day now.
I’m surprised Sony hasn’t announced a streaming service yet — there aren’t even any rumblings about it, like there were before other studios announced theirs. How much longer until we get a subscription – tier “Crackle+” or whatever?(It would be hilarious if they kept that stupid name)
I imagine they’ll be raking the royalties for “Born in the USA” getting played at Republican campaigns.
They’re thinking long-term and know that many of his classic albums will continue to sell more or less forever, and that, yes, the blue collar working-man image those songs projected can, indeed, be used to promote other things.
He’s the last person I would have expected to do this.I wonder if his cognition is in decline.
Most people doing this are old. They do the negotiating while alive because it’s easier to split money when they die, and they are better negotiators than the heirs.Not sure what the “Taylor Swift” comparison is about at the top of the article, but Taylor Swift might have learned from him, back when he didn’t record for almost two years while trying to get out of a contract with his manager, who held HIS publishing rights.
And also—related to heirs—managing the ins and outs of music publishing rights is a pain in the ass, especially now with streaming in the equation. This way, rather than leaving the kids a headache, he can leave them a fortune.
Got it.
To be fair, it is a shit-ton of money. Way more than it’s probably really worth.
His last album does not remotely suggest cognitive decline. Major stars in their 70’s are lining up to do this.
No, I agree. And I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, I’m a big fan. It just kind of shocked me ( I guess Dylan should have shocked me more). It just seems wrong somehow. But I am old – and in decline :-)Joke#118, up top, explains.
Ah- the ol’ “sarcasm doesn’t play on the page” situation. I myself have been a victim. (On the other hand, I recently made an utterly open-hearted, accepting, honest comment in a discussion here a few days ago, and a guy jumped on me like I was crapping on his grandmother. So you take your chances either way, I guess.)
Bob Dylan is the one with dementia. Bruce is still sharp as hell
At night he wakes up with the sheets soaking wet and a freight train running in the middle of his head.Is that a symptom?
Yeah? Well, my music’s not for sale maaaaaaaaaaaan!
Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I in matters of music and music licensing can answer this for me. Do these giant sums being paid make sense for the buyers? Is this a case where revenue that could be generated is so high that what they paid is actually a bargain? Some artists seem to be perennially relevant to people much younger than the audiences who were around in the artists’ heyday (Beatles, Pink Floyd, etc.). But surely some artists’ relevance will only decline from now on. Is this a case of companies willing to risk losing huge amounts buying these catalogues, in the hopes of one purchase more than making up for the losses of other purchases?
There’s a reason no one hears about the company that bought the rights to that “Gangnam Style” guy’s catalog.
Bruce Springsteen, apparently learning nothing from Taylor Swift, has reportedly sold the master recordings and publishing rights to the entirety of his music catalog to Sony for a whopping $500 million. Nothing like starting an article with some idiotic bs. Jesus.
apparently learning nothing from Taylor SwiftThat’s just a dumb aside.Swift was 15 when she sold her publishing and mechanical rights away. Springsteen is 72-years-old and will NOT miss out on decades of income. (actuarially speaking) He is merely doing the equivalent of cashing out an annuity.Springsteen has already demonstrated the financial acumen to make himself a multi-millionaire. Why would you presume that he is making the decision to sell out of ignorance?
I’m starting to realize that the AV Club is a bunch of snarky morons.
Oh honey songs like this, baby they were born to ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun (during car commercials)
If anyone wants it, I’ll sell you my unpublished novels for $50.
“The company now owns 20 of the iconic artist’s work, including famed works Born To Run, The River, and Born In The U.S.A.”I know many people like to harp on errors made in articles and I am generally not one of them, but I have no idea what this sentence was supposed to say. He does have 20 studio albums (per Wikipedia). So does this not inlcude any live material?
The original Billboard article doesn’t mention a number, but since master recordings are part of the deal, I would think that includes live albums. Probably an editing mistake, though not one as egregious as allowing “20 of the iconic artist’s work”.
That was my point. The best guess I could come up with is that Ms. Sanchez meant 20 albums, but that was still a guess.
And Madonna is back with Warner Bros, but who cares, let’s just mention Taylor Swift for no reason at all.
Born in the USA, retiring in Monaco.
$125M per song?
Who keeps buying these catalogues? And why aren’t we dragging them kicking and screaming to the guillotines?
Do the artists who sell their catalogues deserve the guillotine, too?
The price tag for Springsteen’s music is far higher than his counterpartsMy first thought when I saw 500m was “Thats all he got?”. I would have assumed it would be higher, but I guess it makes sense if he’s only getting 15m a year.
Now that is what I call “selling the fuck out.”
Nobody mentions that one of the reasons he did this now was to avoid the coming increases in taxes.
“learning nothing from Taylor Swift…” Except that as I recall Swift’s problem was the rights to her music being swept out from under her by someone with a grudge whereas Springsteen is making his own decision.Sorta different in most of the world that isn’t AVclub.