Bruce Springsteen has sold his publishing catalog to Sony for a reported $500 million, as Billboard reports.
The musician has sold his masters to Sony Music and his publishing to Sony Music Publishing in a combined deal, according Billboard sources. A rep for Sony declined to comment on the deal. Springsteen has remained with Sony\u2019s Columbia Records since he launched his career, and was given ownership of his earlier albums. According the the RIAA, his album catalog has sold 65.5 million in the U.S., which includes his 15-times platinum Born in the U.S.A. and five-times platinum The River. A rep for Springsteen did not immediately return Rolling Stone\u2018s request for comment.
Springsteen is the latest in a long line of veteran artists that have parted ways with their publishing rights in the past couple of years. That list includes Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Shakira, Jimmy Iovine, and David Crosby.
\u201cTime is passing,\u201d Neil Young explained to fans after news of his deal broke. \u201cI want to cover my family and my art.\u2026 A good father plans on how to take care of his children.\u201d
Many of these deals were put together after the pandemic brought the live music business to a complete stop, meaning many veteran artists were suddenly shut off from their main source of income. \u201cGiven our current inability to work live,\u201d David Crosby said about the sales of his songs, who noted that it allowed him to pay off his house, \u201cthis deal is a blessing for me and my family.\u201d
And while Springsteen is in a far better financial situation than Crosby, he still has many incentives to part ways with his catalog. Interest rates are at historical lows, and many artists want to personally oversee the deals before the task falls to their heirs. There\u2019s also a flood of new companies investing huge money in song catalogs, including Merck Mercuriadis\u2019 Hipgnosis and Irving Azoff\u2019s Iconic Artists Group.
Neil Young sold only half his publishing, and one of the conditions was that the songs cannot be used in advertisements. \u201cI built Hipgnosis to be a company Neil would want to be a part of,\u201d Mercuriadis said when the deal became public. \u201cWe have a common integrity, ethos and passion born out of a belief in music and these important songs. There will never be a \u2018Burger of Gold\u2019 but we will work together to make sure everyone gets to hear them on Neil\u2019s terms.\u201d
It\u2019s unclear if Springsteen has a similar deal with Sony. If not, we might be seeing \u201cBorn To Go To Burger King\u201d or \u201cHungry Heart For McDonalds\u201d before long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bruce Springsteen has sold his publishing catalog to Sony for a reported $500 million, as Billboard reports.The musician has sold his masters to Sony Music and his publishing to Sony Music Publishing in a combined deal, according Billboard sources. A rep for Sony declined to comment on the deal. Springsteen has remained with Sony\u2019s Columbia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[688],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-infotainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}