Bowie’s legacy was not the only one sold recently

Negotiations between Bowie’s heirs and Warner Chappel Music had already started last year, but finally concluded this January, with Warner acquiring the recording catalogue of the artist. The deal is worth a total amount of 250 million US dollar and includes the songwriting catalogue from 1968 to 2016, year of the author’s death. 

Many artists are now selling their publishing rights to music companies, as due to the Covid pandemic, they have seen their incomes reduced, since they couldn’t organise concerts or launch new albums. Meanwhile, by purchasing these artists’ catalogues, music companies are boosting their revenues over the royalties, promoting licensing and performing brand deals. 

From an intellectual property perspective, selling rights to a music catalogue means that the artist transfers its exclusive rights over the musical work to music companies, which can imply either the entirety of the rights or only some of them (in this case, known as a licence). Therefore, the transfer of copyright will grant the new owner with the reproduction or distribution rights, but the artist can retain some other rights. 

Bowie’s legacy was not the only one sold recently. Sony purchased Bruce Springsteen’s catalogue early last month; Bob Dylan’s was purchased by Universal Music or Tina Turner’s by BMG; these are just examples of artists that decided to sell their rights.