In 2020, Bob Dylan sold all the copyrights of his more than 600 songs to Universal Music for $ 300 million. She was followed recently by Katy Perry and Justin Bieber. Why do they choose this path?
Katy Perry sold the copyrights to her music catalog for $225 million. Justin Bieber did the same thing this year. There may be more than one reason why stars sell their copyrights.
1. This decision may also mean “let me take my money and retire and live my life”. Especially older artists may want to plan their will easily without bothering their heirs.
2. Due to the tax system implemented in America, artists pay a significant amount of income tax every year for the income of their catalogs, while they are saved by paying a much lower amount of tax at once on catalog sales. This means that millions of dollars to be paid in taxes every year end up in the artist’s pocket.
3. Another reason is that the artist may want to sell at a good price at the right time, considering the fact that his popularity is decreasing over time and monitoring the fluctuating value of his music catalogue. Its value may decrease or, with a low probability, increase over time, so it is thought that the value of the catalog will now decline regularly.
In any case, by transferring the rights of his work to someone else, an artist is actually giving up on his work and declaring that he has no great goals and expectations for the future. An era has officially ended for people who witnessed Katy’s prime period.