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Sony acquires Queen catalog for £1 BILLION

Y

YCoCg

Member
Variety

The Queen music catalog, along with a number of other rights, is in the process of being acquired by Sony Music for £1 billion (around $1.27 billion), two sources confirm to Variety. The news was first reported by Hits; according to their report, the only revenue not covered in the deal is for live performances, which founding members Brian May and Roger Taylor, who still actively tour with singer Adam Lambert, will retain.

One other player was said to be very close in the bidding, but stopped short at $900 million.
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The catalog, which has been in play for several years and inching toward Sony for the past few months, is complicated by the group’s recorded-music rights for the U.S. and Canada, which were acquired by Disney, for an undisclosed price, at some point in the 2000s after an initial $10 million licensing deal that was struck in 1991. Those rights will remain with Disney in perpetuity, although certain of the bandmembers’ remaining royalties from them will go to Sony once the deal closes. Similarly, the group’s distribution deal, which is currently with Universal, will go to Sony in all territories outside the U.S. and Canada when it expires in 2026 or 2027.
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Damn Disney got a good ass deal in 1991, interesting that Sony spent this much on them to not even be getting any money from the US or Canada.
 
feynoob

feynoob

Banned
Guess this is where SIE money went to.

The Sony division is trying to diverse its business by investing in all of their big sectors.

The next buyout should be from Sony pictures. That paramount buyout seems to be close.
 
ahtlas7

ahtlas7

Member
Sad Freddie Mercury GIF by Queen
 
RJMacready73

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Not at all surprising considering how absolutely fucking awful modern day music is with it's over produced seemingly AI generated lyrics, Queen are the greatest band of all time and Freddie the no.1 frontman of all time, their music is absolutely timeless and this will provide an income for years to come, how in the fuck did Disney get that deal???
 
DKehoe

DKehoe

Member
It seems weird to hand over your life's work to a giant corporation when you're already hugely successful and wealthy. But it's their call to make.
 
Mr Reasonable

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
RJMacready73 said:
Not at all surprising considering how absolutely fucking awful modern day music is
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I can imagine that there were plenty of people saying similar when Queen came along - you can imagine people suggesting that a nice afternoon listening to Elgar might be more enjoyable than listening to Freddie and Co.

But, even putting aside the obvious potential for me being too old to fully appreciate the current batch of pop stars, I wonder if there are artists whose back catalogues will be as revered in the future (and worth as much) from the current /recent era?

If you can imagine that Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Queen, Michael Jackson, Abba, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, The Sex Pistols, The Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, Simon and Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder, Prince all put out albums in the decade 1970-1979 and then try and imagine what the last decade would offer to music and culture historians of the future and you might end up with:

Lady Gaga, Ed Sheeran, Adele, Taylor Swift.

I guess my criteria for selecting the above (released an album in a particular decade) would mean that you'd have to include Metallica, Rolling Stones (again), Bruce Springsteen (again, I guess) on that list. But given that most of my first list are people of a similar age, it'd be a bit like adding Vera Lynne to the 1970s list.

It does rather seem that pop music might have peaked.

Fair play to Queen though, might as well cash in. Bryan May can use some of that enormous sum to do something nice for badgers.
 
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T8SC

T8SC

Member
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Alright!
 
Cyberpunkd

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
DKehoe said:
It seems weird to hand over your life's work to a giant corporation when you're already hugely successful and wealthy. But it's their call to make.
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Considering they have been cashing in on Freddie for more than 30 years now it’s exactly something I expected them to do.
 
Punished Miku

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
feynoob said:
Guess this is where SIE money went to.

The Sony division is trying to diverse its business by investing in all of their big sectors.

The next buyout should be from Sony pictures. That paramount buyout seems to be close.
Click to expand...
They've been doing this for a while. They bought all of Bruce Springstein as well. Music is regressing and streaming services are finding many "forever bands" that seem to maintain popularity indefinitely while new stuff is not really being made. This is one of those bands.
 
J

jason10mm

Gold Member
Punished Miku said:
They've been doing this for a while. They bought all of Bruce Springstein as well. Music is regressing and streaming services are finding many "forever bands" that seem to maintain popularity indefinitely while new stuff is not really being made. This is one of those bands.
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Man, ain't that the truth. I'm struggling to think of ANY soundtracks using stuff less than 20 years old. Smashmouths "All Star" and 3 Doors Down "Kryptonite" are like the last ones through the door other than maybe that viking show theme song "If I had a heart" and some Imagine Dragons stuff. Taylor Swift must be tight on licensing her stuff out cause you'd think you would hear her everywhere but I'm not sure that's the case.

I give it about 10 years and "current" mass consumption music will be all AI, which is probably why these old group catalogues are selling for so much. The number of Milli Vanilli type "out sourced front end performer for studio generated content" shit is gonna go through the roof.
 
TransTrender

TransTrender

Gold Member
Punished Miku said:
They've been doing this for a while. They bought all of Bruce Springstein as well. Music is regressing and streaming services are finding many "forever bands" that seem to maintain popularity indefinitely while new stuff is not really being made. This is one of those bands.
Click to expand...
Huh, we always talk about this with our playlists and it makes sense.
It's stuff that every age group and demographic can enjoy except for zoomers and some millennials.
New music sucks am confirmed.
 
Klosshufvud

Klosshufvud

Member
Kind of tragic that their music has not entered public property domain by now. It's also tragic how nostalgia-fixated music consumption has become. In some ways due to lacking quality of modern mass music, but also because the comfort of listening to what you already know and enjoy. In the age of choice, people will first and foremost choose what they know.
 
Wildebeest

Wildebeest

Member
This band's reputation was saved by one gig at live aid, and now they are the only popular rock band left standing.
 
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