Queen’s music catalog could sell for over $1 billion

[mark2114]

There has been talk of the Pink Floyd catalog being sold.
If so, the negotiation with David's team of lawyers and Roger's team of lawyers will be interesting and likely to spill over to Twitter.




https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/28/enter...ale/index.html

[MrFender]

$1 billion is a LOT of spins/downloads/whatever of We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions. I realize you get big chunks of that back when pimping out the songs for movies and advertising but that is a very long term payback at that kind of money.

[MrFender]

And a year later, the prediction has come to pass. The final tally is $1.27 Billion!

https://www.nme.com/news/music/queen...illion-3767084

[YASHA]

I would like to know what motivates performers to take such actions?

The fine print of the contracts?

[ILuvHoney]

I can't understand why any artist would be willing to sell their output in the first place.

[MrFender]

I can't understand why any artist would be willing to sell their output in the first place.

I can see 1.27 Billion reasons.

Seriously, it does seem weird to me as well. You would think that the songs are essentially parts of their life, their memories, their soul and how do you put a price on that? Or at least that's how I would think. They worked their way up usually from nothing to world-wide stardom and could say "Here is my legacy" (and still make money off of it). The artists that are selling their catalogs have made a boatload of money over the years so maybe it doesn't mean as much to them anymore?

[ILuvHoney]

Well, personally what I think if someone says to me that "you're going to get x money if you do this" and that amount is above a certain amount of money, is "what the heck should I do with that amount of money"? And 1.27 billion is certainly above the amount that this limit goes for me, by a margin of about 10.000 times. I am not really into anything that that amount of money would buy. What does even cost 1 billion dollars? And what should you do with that amount of money at all when you're approaching 80 and will likely be dead by 10 years anyway?

[YASHA]

Yes, this is generally a good turn of the topic. I wonder what exactly the equivalent of the colossal sum will be? Securities?

I have a whole swarm of contradictions buzzing in my head about this, and not a single musical note

[Son of Nothing]

You would think that the songs are essentially parts of their life, their memories, their soul and how do you put a price on that?

While I seriously doubt that what I'm about to suggest is what really happened, but you could turn this sentiment around and ask "how much would I sell out for?" And you could pick some outrageously large and impossible amount and say "yeah, I would sell my (musical) soul for a billion" never expecting anyone to be daft enough to pay. Then what do you do when someone says "yeah, I'll pay that". Do you say "just kidding", do you bait and switch or do just go "OK, I asked for that"?

[MrFender]

It would be interesting to see how much each member (or their estate) actually ends up with. Just rough math says just over $300 million for each of the four members but does management or someone else get a cut? Do the members outright own all of their catalog or do others have a certain percentage stake? Plus the government gets their cut as well. And the usual cadre of lawyers, accountants, ex-wives, etc.

[YASHA]

Yes! This huge number of "parallel mouths" is always waiting for its moment =)