The famous British rock band Pink Floyd has decided to sell their music rights and name to Sony Music for about $400 million after many attempts, sources confirm to Variety, reports Daily Sun.
The deal, one of the largest in recent years, has finally been completed after decades of disputes among band members, especially between songwriters Roger Waters and David Gilmour, as well as drummer Nick Mason and the estates of Richard Wright and Syd Barrett. It includes the rights to their recorded music and name for merchandise and other uses, but not the songwriting rights, which remain with the individual writers. Most of the iconic album artwork, created by the firm Hipgnosis, is also included.
Although representatives for the band and Sony did not respond to requests for comment, the Financial Times, which was the first to report on this latest version of the sale, stated it as fact, and sources confirmed the deal to Variety.
On a purely business level, the Pink Floyd recorded-music catalog, not to mention its merchandising rights, is one of the most valuable in contemporary music, with classic albums like “Dark Side of the Moon,” “The Wall,” “Wish You Were Here,” “Animals,” “Meddle,” “Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” “More” and more.
Sony has spent more than a billion dollars on catalogs from Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Queen’s non-North American rights in the past few years (with backing from investment firms like Eldridge Industries), and has never officially comment on the deals. Variety and others reported just two weeks ago that the Pink Floyd transaction was nearing closure.
The catalog had been in play for several years with a reported asking price of $500 million, and the group was close to a deal in 2022, but the bitter infighting between the band’s members — primarily over main songwriter Roger Waters’ controversial political statements against Israel and Ukraine, and in favor of Russia — have complicated the deal enormously and scared off a number of suitors. There seems little question that Waters’ incendiary comments, which have made him a pariah from all but his biggest fans and cost him his solo record deal, devalued the catalog.
Surprisingly, the deal concludes as Israel’s multi-front wars in the Middle East are reaching a new peak of violence, which opens Sony up to a firestorm of criticism for paying such a hefty sum to Waters, who has vehemently denied that he is anti-Semitic but has been quite unambiguous about his fierce criticism of the governments of Israel, Ukraine and the United States, and his strong statements in support of Russia and Vladimir Putin.
The companies that were close to a deal with the group in 2022 — said to be Hipgnosis, Warner Music and BMG — have all had leadership changes since then (and earlier this year, BMG dropped Waters from its roster as a solo artist). Waters’ comments were a major factor in the deals falling apart, although a variety of other factors — including rising interest rates, tax issues and the sinking value of the British pound — also played a role.
Bd-pratidin English/Afia
