Many people say that music is dead, under the impact of music digitalization, the space left for the physical record and performance market is getting smaller and smaller, and the music industry that was once a forest of superstars and sold tens of millions of copies has long disappeared. Although the music market is no longer beautiful, the so-called skinny camel is bigger than the horse, and many superstars can live a luxurious and rich retirement life just by collecting royalties. According to foreign media reports, Bruce Springsteen, a 72-year-old rock veteran, is negotiating with Sony Music to package his music for $415 million, which, if the deal goes well, will be the largest copyright sale in history.
Recently, many musicians with a large number of copyrights are selling their own works, folk music giant Bob Dylan packaged more than 600 songs last year to sell to Universal Records, successfully realized 400 million US dollars, triggering the unanimous congratulations of many friends in the circle, after all, the copyright can not be spent as money, not to the day of sale, never know how much the specific value, like Dylan handed over to the record company to operate, and obtained a win-win result.
This year, Springsteen did the same and decided to make a deal with Sony, which has been working with for more than four decades, and can also get a generous "pension money", which once again proves how wise a decision it is for singers to keep the copyright in their own hands.
In fact, most of the singers or musicians around the world are not as lucky as Springsteen and Bob Dylan, in the era when the five major records manipulate everything, the copyright is generally owned by the record company, and although the stars are beautiful, they are still the cash cows that suck up money for the company.
Only a rock mogul like Springsteen, who is truly creatively powerful, is qualified to negotiate copyright with the company. Now it seems that his copyright is like a treasure that can be exchanged for endless wealth at any time.
Springsteen debuted in 1963, formed his own band in 1971, and then evolved into the e.street band in 1973 and quickly became popular throughout the United States with poetic lyrics and strong musical expression, harvesting Grammy Awards, Golden Globes and Oscars, dozens of hall-of-fame records sold more than 60 million copies in the United States, and sold more than 120 million records worldwide, making it one of the best-selling bands in the world.
The experience of a red-to-purple superstar has made Springsteen the richest rock and roll veteran in history, according to Billboard statistics, he has sucked $840 million on touring in the past decade, and the annual royalties are equally lucrative, reaching $22.5 million in 2020 alone, which is probably the biggest reason why Sony Records tearfully paid money and would rather spend hundreds of millions of dollars in a one-time buyout, because in the long run, it may save a little.