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The MJ Estate are close to a 50% sale of MJs catalog

I'm shocked too and don't know what to say. Why part with 50% of the rights?

I also wonder why so many artist with no obvioulsly financial need (Springsteen, Dilan, Timberlake, Turner.... sold their catalogs in the past month/year.
 
For a legacy artist selling the rights makes a lot of sense. In the US there are really good tax benefits when they get that big lump sum. Dividing assets amongst the kids is easier when it's a lump sum. I've seen reports stating that some artists have sold their rights for up to 25x - 30x the value of their annual royalties.

Retaining 50% (same as Neil Young) sounds like a canny business deal.

Michael did fight hard to retain ownership of his music. But we don't know what he would do if he was still alive and saw his peers selling their rights. He had a good business brain and three kids. Maybe he would have changed his mind. There's no way to know.
 
zinniabooklover said:
For a legacy artist selling the rights makes a lot of sense. In the US there are really good tax benefits when they get that big lump sum. Dividing assets amongst the kids is easier when it's a lump sum. I've seen reports stating that some artists have sold their rights for up to 25x - 30x the value of their annual royalties.

Retaining 50% (same as Neil Young) sounds like a canny business deal.

Michael did fight hard to retain ownership of his music. But we don't know what he would do if he was still alive and saw his peers selling their rights. He had a good business brain and three kids. Maybe he would have changed his mind. There's no way to know.
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There's no way to know what he would have done, we do know what he did all his life though, which was fight hard to keep his music.
 
The fact that only 50% of MJ's catalogue is being sold for nearly a billion tells me that he is still a massive name in the music industry.

For comparison, Justin Bieber recently sold his entire catalogue for 200 million.
 
Nite Line said:
This is a standard music practice these days. A lot of artists are selling their catalogue, because there are hardly making any money from streaming.
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The royalty rate from streaming is frankly insulting.

Selling rights? Bob Dylan's done it, Bruce Springsteen, Billie Eilish. I think Kendrick Lamar has done it.

Nite Line said:
The fact that only 50% of MJ's catalogue is being sold for nearly a billion tells me that he is still a massive name in the music industry.
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Exactly. If that figure is correct that is MASSIVE. That figure dwarfs every other one I've seen. Bruce Springsteen got $500m (or $600m according to some reports). Bowie's estate got $250m I think. Don't think I've seen a figure for Bob Dylan.

Not that I see this as a competition but it says a lot about Michael's standing if this figure is even close to being accurate.
 
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Does this mean it will be easier to obtain MJ songs for tv or movies?
 
I can see Spotify buying it and make everything exclusive for their platform.
 
zinniabooklover said:
The royalty rate from streaming is frankly insulting.
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There's also the case that a lot of folks today pirate music & movies. With music that's been happening ever since the Napster days when Metallica tried to sue MP3 file sharers. You couldn't do that decades ago. At most you could copy an album to a cassette, but you had to actually play the record in real time, you had to know somebody that owned the album/45, & have a stereo with a cassette recorder or a double cassette boombox. There's programs that let you download Youtube videos or just the audio. Notice that music artists today that are richer made a lot of their money from something else like Rihanna with her makeup line, Dr Dre with headphones, & Will Smith/Queen Latifah from acting. People not buying physical product is why Stevie Nicks doesn't want to record any new music with Fleetwood Mac or solo. She said that's a waste of money since an artist still has to pay for studio time and to promote the music with little or no profit in return.
 
Not entirely sure how to feel about this. I know people are hyper focused on MJ’s prior comments on the ownership of his catalog, but the industry is completely different from 20 years ago. We don’t know the logistics of this—it could offer a wider expanse of his catalog, it could provide more income for his kids, so on and so forth. It’s easy to say, “MJ didn’t want to do this,” but sometimes it’s about what’s necessary rather than what our subjective opinions are. (Also, there are a lot of things MJ didn’t want, and yet we as fans are in total support of them. Sort of inconsistent in our stances.)

Also, as @Nite Line said, plenty of artists are selling their entire catalogs. The fact that only half of MJ’s is worth nearly a billion is a testament to his staying power.

Ultimately, while I understand the skepticism, I don’t want to make any final judgments until we see who the purchaser is and what extent the estate still presided over his catalog. This could mean a million different things.
 

Michael Jackson Estate Nearing Music-Catalog Sale Worth $800-$900 Million (EXCLUSIVE)​

variety.com

Michael Jackson Estate Nearing Music-Catalog Sale Worth $800-$900 Million (EXCLUSIVE)

The Michael Jackson estate is in the process of selling half of its interests in the legendary singer’s music catalog in a deal in the $800 million-$900 million range, three sources confirm to Vari…
variety.com variety.com

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The Michael Jackson estate is in the process of selling half of its interests in the legendary singer’s music catalog in a deal in the $800 million-$900 million range, three sources confirm to Variety. While details are unclear, sources say that Sony and a possible financial partner are negotiating to acquire 50% of the estate’s interests in Jackson’s publishing, recorded-music revenues, the “MJ: The Musical” Broadway show and the upcoming biopic “Michael,” and possibly more assets.

The package would be the biggest deal to date in the still-booming music catalog market.

A financial source tells Variety that Primary Wave Music already owns a stake in Jackson’s publishing catalog, although details are unclear.

Reps for the Jackson estate, co-executors John Branca and John McClain, Sony and Primary Wave declined Variety’s multiple requests for comment.

Sony has been involved in some of the biggest previous known catalog deals: It acquired Bruce Springsteen’s publishing and recorded-musiccatalogs for a combined price sources said was around $600 million. Sources say the company also paid $150 million-$200 million for Bob Dylan’s rights to his recorded-music catalog, after seeing the legendary songwriter sell the rights to his publishing to Universal Music for nearly $400 million. Such blockbuster deals have become routine in recent years — the three core members of Genesis sold a catalog package to Concord for $300 million — but if the information is accurate, the Jackson deal is the biggest to date by far.

Sources would not confirm the financial partner in the deal, and it remains unclear whether one is definitely involved, but likely suspects would include Eldridge Industries, which partnered with Sony on the blockbuster Springsteen catalog deal and also acquired the Killers’ pre-2020 publishing catalog, and Shamrock, which recently partnered with Universal on a $200 million-plus catalog acquisition from Dr. Dre and in 2020 acquired the rights to Taylor Swift’s first six albums from a consortium led by Scooter Braun.

Sony and its predecessor CBS were the sole home for Jackson’s recorded-music catalog for his entire solo career and the latter years of his career with the Jackson 5. The singer died in 2009 at the age of 50; the formidable entertainment interests of his estate have been handled with a firm hand by Branca, his longtime attorney, and co-executor John McClain.

Jackson’s recorded-music catalog is one of most lucrative in history — his 1982 “Thriller” album alone is one of the two biggest sellers of all time and was the first album to be certified 30-times platinum, although such figures have become muddled in the streaming age.

In 2016 Sony Corp. reached an agreement with the estate to acquire the estate’s 50% stake in their joint venture, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, for $750 million. The following year the company revealed in an earnings report that as part of its $2.3 billion acquisition of EMI Music Publishing from a consortium led by private equity firm Mubadala., Sony had acquired the Jackson estate’s 25.1% stake in EMI for $287.5 million. At the end of that years-long process, EMI and Sony/ATV were fully owned by Sony, making it sole owner of the world’s largest music publishing company.
 
AlwaysThere said:
Not entirely sure how to feel about this. I know people are hyper focused on MJ’s prior comments on the ownership of his catalog, but the industry is completely different from 20 years ago.
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That's the point I was trying to make. With the changes in the music industry we can't know what Michael would decide.

AlwaysThere said:
We don’t know the logistics of this—it could offer a wider expanse of his catalog, it could provide more income for his kids,
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It almost definitely will provide more money for the kids.

AlwaysThere said:
so on and so forth. It’s easy to say, “MJ didn’t want to do this,” but sometimes it’s about what’s necessary rather than what our subjective opinions are. (Also, there are a lot of things MJ didn’t want, and yet we as fans are in total support of them. Sort of inconsistent in our stances.)

Also, as @Nite Line said, plenty of artists are selling their entire catalogs. The fact that only half of MJ’s is worth nearly a billion is a testament to his staying power.
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It's amazing. I haven't seen any other comparable deal with this kind of figure attached to it. This is off the chart.

AlwaysThere said:
Ultimately, while I understand the skepticism, I don’t want to make any final judgments until we see who the purchaser is and what extent the estate still presided over his catalog.
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Exactly. I'm expecting it to be Hipgnosis or one of the big hitters. With that kind of figure being quoted - if it's accurate - I can't see who else it would be. But time will tell.

AlwaysThere said:
This could mean a million different things.
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That's just it. There doesn't seem to be one standard package for these music rights sales. They all seem to be a little bit different from each other.
 
Oh well. At first glance, it's shocking. But in another, if that number is correct, that estate could be at almost 2 billion in cash (or whatever else those earnings of Sony/ATV, EMI and MIJAC will be invested in). Cash they have now and not need several years to make. Either way, none of the persons benefiting from the estate will hurt for money. It's just a symbolic thing whether it's better to hang on to the catalog or turn it to money right way. And if they still retain 50 % I think that is the best of both worlds. Lots of cash now, but still a steady income benefiting from Michael's songs. And really, there is no way telling whether Michael would have changed his mind in the past 15 years. In 2002 he got on the bus to protest Sony and in 2008 he still made business with them, as it made sense to him. One has the right to change his mind, if it makes sense and benefits you.
 
Elton-Cetera said:
How do we know that this is not Sony's attempt at canceling Michael Jackson? Who has possession of Michael Jackson's master tapes?
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Paying 800 Mio. $ to bury the songs?? I don't think Sony's morals is that high to lose money burying their biggest artist. Also the estate retains half of the catalog. So they are not in full control. And since Sony controls what MJ music is released anyway, they wouldn't need to buy the catalog to bury it.
 
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