Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
- Apple Podcasts
- Google Podcasts
Inside the Bull Market for Songwriting Rights
The emergence of Hipgnosis has helped turn the battle for catalogs into an arms race that shows no signs of slowing down.
Hosted by Jon Caramanica. Produced by Pedro Rosado.
Bob Dylan’s announcement last month that he had sold his vast songwriting catalog to Universal Music for a price estimated at more than $300 million underscored what had been increasingly clear over the past two years: Song publishing rights are an increasingly coveted asset class, attracting impressive money and plenty of investors looking to cash in.
This is best embodied by Merck Mercuriadis, who heads the Hipgnosis Songs Fund, which has spent approximately $1.7 billion in recent years to amass the rights to over 57,000 songs. The emergence of Hipgnosis has helped turn the battle for song catalogs into an arms race, one that shows no signs of slowing down.
On this week’s Popcast, a interrogation of the current bull market in song publishing, and an assessment of its long-term viability.
Guest:
Ben Sisario, The New York Times’s music industry reporter
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Source: Music - nytimes.com