Pink Floyd have sold their entire catalog, as well as their name and likeness, to Sony for whopping $400 million, the Financial Times reports.The label now owns the recorded masters of each Pink Floyd album, and they also have the rights to licensed merchandise as well as spin-offs like movies and TV series.
With this sale, the years-long debacle between Roger Waters and David Gilmour over their long-delayed Animals remaster has also, theoretically, come to an end.According to Waters, the dispute stemmed from liner notes written by Mark Blake, which Gilmour wanted removed from the package because they revealed aspects of the album’s creation that Gilmour preferred to keep secret.
Pink Floyd are just the latest legacy act to sell their catalogs for impossibly large price tags; over the past few years, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen also sold their catalogs to Sony.Even more contemporary artists are catching on, too, with Tame Impala and Justin Timberlake having sold their masters.
The most expensive sale thus far is that of Queen’s, who sold their whole catalog, name, and likeness earlier this year for about $1.27 billion....