Now Katy Perry has sold her music catalog, too
Katy Perry joins artists like Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber in selling her back catalog for big bucks
Aux News Katy Perry
Katy Perry has become the latest musician to cash out while the cash is good. According to Variety, the pop star has sold her back catalog—which includes the albums One Of The Boys, Teenage Dream, Prism, Witness, and Smile—to Litmus Music for a cool $225 million. While Universal Music Group owns the masters for those albums, Litmus has acquired Perry’s stakes in the master recordings and publishing rights for the songs.
Litmus co-founder and former Capitol Records president Dan McCarroll said in a statement, “Katy Perry is a creative visionary who has made a major impact across music, TV, film, and philanthropy. I’m so honored to be partnering with her again and to help Litmus manage her incredible repertoire.”
Litmus is backed by the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm that found itself in Taylor Swift’s crosshairs over the sale of her back catalog. Since launching in 2022, Litmus has acquired publishing and recording rights from artists that include Keith Urban and producer Benny Blanco.
Litmus is far from the only company snatching up these valuable assets, and Perry is far from the only performer selling them. Hipgnosis is one of the biggest names in the game, having acquired catalogs from Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, Mark Ronson, Timbaland, Kenny Chesney, and more. Then there’s Primary Wave, which owns the rights for legendary music from Bob Marley, Smokey Robinson, Prince, Stevie Nicks, James Brown, and Whitney Houston, among others.
Many of the biggest catalog sales so far have been from artists who are deceased or in the later stage of their careers, like Bruce Springsteen’s $500 million sale to Sony. Those sales are more or less akin to estate planning. But younger artists like Perry and Bieber have obviously been convinced of the wisdom of striking while the iron is hot. There are tax benefits to such a deal, but there’s also the uncertain future of the music industry where streaming has devalued what a song is worth—these artists are placing a bet that cashing out now is a better bet than watching their songs depreciate.
Meanwhile, companies like Primary Wave are making the most of their acquisitions with deals like the Aerosmith lottery campaign in 2009, which “project raked in royalties on both the publishing side, because of the printed lyrics on the tickets themselves, and for the master recording, since the radio and TV spots publicizing the jackpot played the song on-air,” per a Pitchfork profile on the company.
Of course, there are crafty ways to capitalize on classic music, and Perry has some bonafide classics. Teenage Dream, in particular, was a hit machine, making Perry the only artist besides Michael Jackson to send five songs from the same album to the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
27 Comments
Good for her, I guess? As long as she chose this and wasn’t forced into it, I guess it’s really none of my business.
Not understanding that industry at all, I have to ask: has she no control over how her music is used going forward? That seems…not like something a musician would want. But hey, I guess a few hundred mil goes a long way.
it’s a baffling trend i’m seeing and it really makes me wonder what they know that we don’t. it’s as many young artists as old ones.
Could be that the studio/publisher took a huge slice out of the profits. It’s been an open secret for a while that artists make most of their money off of performing anyway. Michael Jackson bought The Beatles publishing rights, outbidding Paul McCartney in the 80’s. The money is in publishing rights, but not every artist could afford to buy them from the music labels.
I’m thinking that streaming has cut into sales significantly, so the music isn’t the steady stream of income it once was. Licensing is great, if you can get, but that’s only a small slice of a catalog of music. Like the lottery winnings options, if you want to take the 20 year plan, you get more money. However, if you want a lump sum now, you get a lower amount of cash, but get huge chunk of cash upfront. Selling a music catalog is the lump sum option. Also, that banked money is bulletproof against a possible worthless catalog if at some point a celeb gets cancelled.
and i guess if they’re any kind of artist they will probably continue to make music, i doubt this covers any future works.
Not that she can’t continue said career if she wanted to, the artists cited in this version of sales are all mature (not expecting growth in their fame) in their careers, and these are big enough payouts that they could do a lot else.They already won the lottery–this is choosing between one big payout or smaller ones.
She kissed her songs goodbye, and she liked it.
Shut up stupid
How does this work – does she not make money off any of the songs anymore?
Pretty much. She gets the $225 million upfront, and they get future royalties. She might still get a smaller rate as a performer, but I’m not sure.
They’re converting future earnings into a lump sum now.
Anyone remember when she kissed some kid against his will on national tv because he said he hadn’t yet had his first kiss ?
Just so a certain poster doesn’t get to start spreading his vileness by surprise after pretending to “play nice”:
I’m not a pop music person, but I’m quite surprised Katy Perry’s catalog would be worth that much money. The cost of that transaction indicates the buyer thinks her music will have significant value for a long time. I kind of thought her moment had passed. Maybe I’m wrong.
That may be why she ultimately sold them off. Probably sees diminishing results in the licensing and royalties at the moment, while Litmus sees bankable profit in the years to come.
I agree. Perry never felt like she had a particularly enduring and deep fanbase so much as being popular as long as she was producing big hits, and now that the hits are gone she’s mostly dropped out of sight unless you go to one of her Vegas shows.
Several of her songs, e.g. Firework, are significant anthems for people of a certain age, and they represent a particular era of American life. I imagine that more than a few advertisers and movie/TV productions would pay well to include her songs from that era.
“Katy Perry is a creative visionary.”This is a sentence that someone said.
She probably waited too long and got less than she could have two years ago, but a near-quarter-billion is still pretty good. I assume she still has performing rights for any of her Vegas shows if she keeps on doing them.
I’m guessing this also counts as a capital gain, so she got taxed at a lower rate for it.
I think these companies are massively overpaying for these rights. Might as well sell when the money’s good.
There are rumours going around that the music catalog industry could implode soon. The board of Hipgnosis are voting soon to offload some of their assets due to cashflow problems, and Round Hill had to be sold off due to massively underperforming on royalties.Who knows – maybe Ms Perry might be able to buy her songs back for a profit.
I’d be shocked if Katy Perry wrote a note on any of her albums. So this is only the license to those exact performances/recordings is my guess.
I’m baffled that all these artists are selling their catalog like this. Didn’t they learn anything from, well, basically any recording artist who has been around for a while? Hell even if it is someone getting up there in age, how much money do you need? Fuck, give the rights to some charity or something.
It’s weird to me to see more current artist, such as Perry, doing it. Bob Dylan? Sure. He’s in the twilight of his career and life. Springsteen? Fine. Their biggest hits are behind them, and they know the real money is largely in touring at this point since album streams pay zilch compared to the good ol’ days of physical sales. Granted, deals like these only cover what’s been done, so Katy Perry can presumably make 20 more years of music and also sell that when she’s ready.It’s just interesting that Taylor Swift appears to be the only one running the other way – actively reclaiming all control of everything she’s ever done. Granted, it’s Swift, and she operates at a nearly unrivaled level in the industry.
225 million!? I fucking hate my life.
A good rule of writing is not to start subsequent paragraphs with the same word.