In matters of (announced) catalog takeovers, things have been rather quiet in the past few months – at least compared to the times when a deal was reported almost every week. However, the Bertelsmann music division BMG has now announced the second deal within a week.
The world’s fourth-largest music company by some distance, behind Universal, Sony and Warner Music, has acquired the author rights of French electro pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre after BMG announced an agreement with the two founding members of Scottish rock band Simple Minds on Tuesday. In both cases, nothing was made public about financial details or when the agreement was reached. Future works by Jarre are not part of the deal.
As a result of the takeover of the indie label Francis Dreyfus Music in 2012, BMG also held the rights to the first three albums by the 73-year-old artist, the Bertelsmann division announced on Thursday. The rights to the recordings are to be considered separately from those to the underlying texts and compositions – as are the associated royalties for the use of the works in streaming, in films, in advertising or in video games. The majority of the artist’s more than 20 albums are marketed by Sony Music.
man of records
Jarre has sold more than 85 million albums to date, according to BMG. His most famous work is Oxygène, published in 1976. Jarre is considered one of the pioneers of electronic music and is also known for opulent live shows. In 1979, for example, he played in front of a million people at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, in 1997 in front of 3.5 million fans in Moscow. 75 million people watched a live stream concert on New Year’s Eve 2020 in front of a virtual image of Notre Dame. In June last year, he was made commander of the Legion of Honor by France’s President.
In the past few months, various artists have assigned rights to their work in return for a sizeable one-off payment. Among the biggest sales were Bob Dylan’s deal with the publishing division of Universal Music (he later sold the rights to his recordings to Sony Music), Neil Young’s sale to the Hipgnosis Fund and Bruce Springsteen’s agreement with Sony Music.
Dylan, Springsteen or Tina Turner as role models
Springsteen is said to have received around 550 million dollars for the rights to his recordings, texts and compositions, with Sony’s publishing house having teamed up with the US holding company Eldridge Industries in the case of author rights. Springsteen’s deal is believed to be the most expensive catalog sale by a single artist to date. Sting, Neil Diamond, Tina Turner, Stevie Nicks, David Bowie’s heirs, but also younger artists such as David Guetta, John Legend and recently Justin Timberlake have sold individual rights packages.
The buyers – whether music companies or financial investors such as KKR, Blackstone, Pimco or Blackrock – rely on generating long-term stable income from the exploitation of the rights, which can potentially be increased further through further market growth and new marketing opportunities. Although the rising interest rates are likely to depress catalog prices, they will do little to change the fundamental attraction of rights to hits.
BMG recently acquired rights packages from Tina Turner, Mötley Crüe and ZZ Top, among others. In the case of ZZ Top, this was the first public deal to date from the alliance formed by BMG and the financial investor KKR in March 2021 for the joint acquisition of music rights. Overall, the partners announced last year that they wanted to invest around one billion dollars in music rights.
