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  1. Was it Not “Universal” that had a massive warehouse fire – destroying untold music memorabilia etc
    some years back??

    I hope Bob keeps duplicates of all his writings etc.

  3. Seems a sensible bit of business. Bob gets a wedge of cash now, Universal get to collect the future royalties. It might not be as good a deal for his estate, but he’s got the cash in the bank and Universal have to do the work to make sure they earn their money back.

    Buying up composition copyright isn’t new (In 1985 Michael Jackson paid $47m for the rights to 250 songs Beatles songs) but it’s becoming far less of a niche investment, and attracting a broader investment base. Royalties used to be seen as a nice little passive future income stream, but they’ve proven to be very stable when markets otherwise get choppy, and Dylan’s deal is just one of many.

    A guy called Merck Mercuriadis (who had helped manage Guns n Roses and Iron Maiden) set up an investment company called Hipgnosis whichhas spent more than £650m buying the rights to 13,000 songs, and a share of eight of the top 25 most played songs of all time on Spotify. Another firm called Round Hill lobbed out $240m on 100,000 songs in recent years including those of Elvis Presley.

    Back in 2012 Pete Townshend sold his rights to a company called Spirit. The amount wasn’t disclosed but a fun fact that emerged was that just 7 of the 400 songs he had written yielded 96% of his income.

  4. Presumably he’s looking to set up his family (and their families) for the future. He’s hardly likely to go off on a spending spree at his age, nor would I imagine he’s been short of the necessary to buy the odd Ferrari, should such things tempt him.
    No doubt lawyers are doing well coming up with instruments to avoid whatever inheritance tax gets paid in the US.

  5. That Pete Townshend/Who “hit rate” in such matters is interesting and I’ve heard it about other acts.

    Not my bag, obviously, but re: Spandau Ballet, if you own a percentage of anything other than True and, to a lesser extent, Gold, don’t order the double cheeseburger, you won’t be able to afford it, and the same for the Eurythmics and Sweet Dreams.

    I’ve a theory that in about 20 years time, there will be 50 songs (with the whole of The Beatles’ back catalogue on constant standby for a 51st) on permanent rotation everywhere.
    Gold Stations rather than being behind the game, are actually well ahead of it, only they haven’t fully cottoned on to The Beatles addendum yet.

    The 2040s are going to be really exciting, no one in the population will have an excuse not to hear UB40’s Red Red Wine at least three times a day in one of its ten designated time slots between True and Dancing Queen.

    • Pretty sure playing oldie hits on the radio will be dead well before the 2040s. In era of smart phones, podcasts, spotify etc who listens to this stuff? Over 60s probably. Can imagine cars in the future may not even have radios, CD players are pretty much gone already. Talk radio and specialist radio will continue, but playing hits on the radio (with lots of commercials)? I doubt it.

    • From regular bouts of laptop working in cafes a few years back, it became clear that Magic FM’s automated system played Dancing Queen at the same time each day, almost so as you could set your watch by it. Just before 5pm since you ask.

    • “Cottoned on to The Beatles”? I hate to be the one to tell you, but they broke up 50 years ago and are now indeed just another band to eveyone outside music sites like this one. Probably above Spandau Ballet in recognition, but only just.

      Applying the same logic, when was the last time anyone heard on a “civilian” radio show, a Beatles song that wasn’t, say, “Yesterday,” “Hey Jude” or one of – at best – another 3?

      • Nobody listens to Civilian Radio except civilians and most of them aren’t even listening, so I don’t really see your point. Kids are not civilians, they stream everything and one of the bands they stream are the HJHMs. And not always just the obvious tracks, though they do get hammered there too.

        A quick survey.
        Spotify Plays for The Beatles:
        Here Comes The Sun 561,347,037
        Come Together 361,777,767
        Let It Be 324,294,318
        Yesterday 286,296,825
        Hey Jude 317,276,747
        Blackbird 198,355,417
        Twist And Shout 214,614,976
        In My Life 156,496,546
        I Want To Hold Your Hand 214,458,725
        Help 154,239,655

        Spotify Plays for Spandau Ballet:
        True (single edit) 220,731,780
        Gold 82,908,176
        Through The Barricades (remaster) 18,179,961
        Only When You Leave 18,616,424
        Through The Barricades 19,721,952
        True 5,152,369
        To Cut A Long Story Short 6,771,018
        Gold (remastered) 9,616,515
        I’ll Fly For You 7,602,108
        How Many Lies 54,760

        The Spands are waaay behind for all but one song and I could sing you every single one in the Beatles list. Couldn’t do that with any but the obvious three from Spandau Ballet.

          • Common practice on the larger, better-organised building projects is a complete ban on radios on site. No more tuning to competing stations and trying to drown each other out.
            Also no playing of music through headphones or earbuds or making/receiving mobile calls in areas where machinery and vehicles are moving about or especially when operating or driving machinery or vehicles.
            A work colleague of mine was filmed and featured in the safety induction video for the Heathrow Terminal 5 construction project, as an example of correct procedure using a cherry-picker.
            A couple of weeks later he ran somebody over and broke the guy’s leg. The guy had stopped to answer his mobile, leaning against the machine’s rear wheel to do so, just as the driver was about to reverse.

  6. In my car I already shout, “Alexa, play my music Mahavishnu Orchestra/ soft machine/ van der graaf generator/ etc,” and have my music on shuffle until I say “times radio” on the hour for headlines. so need never listen to inane djs again.

  7. This is interesting. I have 3 of his limited edition signed prints that I bought when I had a windfall last year. Within 6 months they doubled in value so as it currently stands they were a sound investment. Assuming he doesn’t do a Rolf Harris they should stay that way. Castle Fine Art have the rights in UK and I was told his work was going to be exhibited in Asia which would see their value rise further.
    He has just released more works of art – possibly he has changed focus and wants to spend time on this aspect of his work.
    Cant imagine him not touring when restrictions are lifted.

  9. It means… he’s sold out. And wisely too! I can’t quite see how these investment companies will get their money back, unless the plan is to buy X number of songs from name acts and hope that 1% of them will strike lucky by remaining in demand for synchronisation in TV, films, ads, video games etc. That’s where the last real money in music is – not in radio plays, direct sales of recordings, etc. Which 1% that is may not be as simple as saying ‘ah yes, Pete Townshend’s top 7 songs are these, so those are the only ones that matter’. It may well be that time and circumstances will shine the light on an eighth song, and that becomes ‘the one’. Back in the record era, as a small analogy, wasn’t that the case with Badfinger’s ‘Without You’ and Nick Lowe’s ‘Peace, Love & Understanding’? A few years later, someone covers the thing and sells a million.

    • Which 1 percent is the tricky part. Take for example Mike Scott of The Waterboys if he was asked which 1 percent of his songs were his best I doubt very much if he would have chosen ‘how long will I love you?’.
      Ellie Goulding covered it and turned it into a mega hit. And lined his pocket too.

  10. At the risk of being a bit morbid, when the Bobster finally steps on a rainbow, Universal will release a Greatest Hits collection and sell a boatload. There’ll be tributes galore, and any one of them that feature’s Bob’s music will have to pay. It won’t be $400 millions worth, but it will be a nice chunk of change and Universal get to keep it all.

  11. A friend wrote a book and quoted Absolutely Sweet Marie – “to live outside the law you must be honest” presumbably. He sought permission, partly to do the right thing and I suspect partly because he is a Dylan tragic and wanted to interact with the organisation.

    The cost for those 9 words – $US500

    So there are a lot of nice little earners in owning publishing rights.

    • My advice to authors tempted to do that was always ‘Don’t even think about it,’ especially if American lawyers were involved, and find a way round it. One book I published – might have been Stanley Booth’s book on the Stones – the US publishers had world English language publishing rights, but had only cleared quotation rights for the US. Absolute nightmare.

      In the case above…’That Dylan line about living outside the law popped into his head. Bullshit, he thought, as he checked his gun one more time.’

    • Blimey. I would have thought that came under fair usage. I have no index of the context in your friend’s book, but does that me he could have a character say, for instance, ‘As Bob Dylan’s said, “To live outside the law you must be honest.”’?

      • I think I’m right in saying that fair usage only applies in the context of reviewing the work being quoted, so if Mojo are reviewing an album/track and quote lyrics by way of illustration, that’s fair game, but just using lyrics as a way of commenting on something else will incur a cost… In the same way, I think review podcasts get to play up to 30 seconds of music without costs.

        Mechanical copyright has some interesting wrinkles, too… if a track is used in a film or TV programme as background (e.g. playing over the action during a car chase), you will pay a certain rate, but you’ll pay much more if the same track is being played as if it is on the radio or on a record player within the film…

        • That’s interesting: so “diegetic” music happening inside the drama costs more than “extra-diegetic” music added to the soundtrack. I thought it would be the other way round, but I was wrong.

          • Yes, I believe it’s because “diegetic” (bonus points for that!) music is a seen as a “character” in the narrative, e.g. when Will Smith plays a vinyl copy of Miles Davis’ “A Kind Of Blue” on his turntable (or any song playing on a jukebox in a bar, or his car radio or wherever), that’s an extra dimension that’s been added to the story that Will Smith simply wandering around his flat with AKOB playing in the background doesn’t have… Edgar Wright’s “Baby Driver” must’ve been a nightmare, because virtually every cue is being played on Baby’s iPod within the story…

            • Baby Driver would have spent a huge amount of the film’s budget licensing those songs. Was there any composed incidental music in it? I can’t remember

              • IMDB tells me that Steven Price is credited as composer for Baby Driver, so I assume there must’ve been some incidental music, but like you, I can’t remember it.

                I read that Edgar Wright’s pitch for the film had a front page to the effect of “This entire script is based on the music selections, there are a lot of them and they are 100% non-negotiable, don’t bother reading any further if you’re not prepared to budget for them…”

        • I worked on a book a few years back that used a few Sting quotes at the beginning of some of the chapters. We had been assured that the writer knew that it was his responsibility to get permission for these, so imagine our delight when it emerged that he’d actually done no such thing.

          However, everything turned out OK when Sting retrospectively gave the project the thumbs up. And in a staggering display of generosity and all-round good blokery even donated an entirely new song to the stage show that was subsequently adapted from the book.

  12. David Crosby is doing it too, for much less money. Without any concert income at the age of 79 he claims to be broke. Never a prolific songwriter and especially not of hits, it looks like these 3 could earn him some income, assuming he owns the publishing still (or a share thereof):

    8 Miles High (co-written with Gene Clark and Roger McGuinn),
    Deja Vu and Almost Cut My Hair, maybe a couple off the first CSN album too (Guinnevere and co-written Wooden ships)

  13. Does anybody here own a Bowie bond? Serious question. Another way of realising cash for the artist but more suited to those who will have time to create more product.

    • Funny isn’t it. Performers say they can’t make money from streaming and yet investment companies are falling over each other to buy up publishing rights. Streaming might have changed how we consume music but it seems like not much has changed in terms of who hgets the money.

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