Pink Floyd reportedly agreed to sell the rights to their substantial music catalogue as well as their name and likeness as a band to Sony Music for $400M this week.
The Grammy-winning psychedelic group have sold over 250M records worldwide and four of their albums (The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, The Wall, and Atom Heart Mother) managed to top the US Billboard 200 chart.
However, Sony Music – which did similar deals with Queen, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen – will not retain the copyrights of the songwriting but it will have the rights to merchandise and film/TV spin-offs, Financial Times reported Tuesday.
This, two years after a tax structure dispute between surviving Pink Floyd members – as well as founding bassist Roger Waters’ controversial comments against Israel and Ukraine – derailed a planned $500M sale to bidders like Hipgnosis, Warner Music, and BMG.
For instance, the outspoken 81-year-old said of Israel’s treatment of Palestine ‘the parallels with what went on in the 1930s in Germany are so crushingly obvious’ and he suggested the October 7th Hamas attack may have been a ‘false flag operation.’
Pink Floyd reportedly agreed to sell the rights to their substantial music catalogue as well as their name and likeness as a band to Sony Music for $400M this week (pictured in 2005)
The Grammy-winning psychedelic group have sold over 250M records worldwide and four of their albums (The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, The Wall, and Atom Heart Mother) managed to top the US Billboard 200 chart (pictured in 1971)
In January, BMG officially parted ways with Roger, who claimed Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was ‘not unprovoked’ while speaking to the United Nations Security Council last year.
Waters also told Rolling Stone in 2022 that the United States is ‘the most evil [country in the world] of all by a factor of at least 10 times’ and that Jewish people in the US/UK are responsible for Israel ‘because they pay for everything.’
Aside from Roger, the complicated deal involved guitarist-keyboard player David Gilmour, founding drummer Nick Mason, and the estates of the late founding keyboardist Richard Wright and late founding frontman Roger ‘Syd’ Barrett.
Last month, Gilmour confirmed to the Washington Post that the sale was in the works.
‘My reason for wanting to do it is I don’t want to burden my kids with that whole legacy,’ the 78-year-old father-of-eight lamented.
‘And I also have had enough of the burdens of looking after that f***ing legacy for the last nearly 40 years with the s*** and the arguments that go on. And I just want to be shorn of it.’
When asked if he worried about future AI or hologram versions of Pink Floyd, David scoffed: ‘No. I’ll be dead. Who gives a s*** what anyone does?’
Gilmour is next scheduled to bring his 21-date Luck and Strange Tour to Italy’s Circo Massimo in Rome this Wednesday and Thursday.
Pink Floyd dropped their 50th anniversary box set of The Dark Side of the Moon last year, and they still regularly amass 18.3M monthly listeners on Spotify.
The British rock band – which last reunited in 2005 for Live 8 London – were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and they dropped their 15th (and final) studio album The Endless River in 2014.
However, Sony Music – which did similar deals with Queen, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen – will not retain the copyrights of the songwriting but it will have the rights to merchandise and film/TV spin-offs, Financial Times reported Tuesday
This, two years after a tax structure dispute between surviving Pink Floyd members – as well as founding bassist Roger Waters’ (M, pictured in 2023) controversial comments against Israel and Ukraine – derailed a planned $500M sale to bidders like Hipgnosis, Warner Music, and BMG
For instance, the outspoken 81-year-old said of Israel’s treatment of Palestine ‘the parallels with what went on in the 1930s in Germany are so crushingly obvious’ and he suggested the October 7th Hamas attack may have been a ‘false flag operation’
Roger also told Rolling Stone in 2022 that the United States is ‘the most evil [country in the world] of all by a factor of at least 10 times’ and that Jewish people in the US/UK are responsible for Israel ‘because they pay for everything’ (Jewish protesters pictured in 2023)
Aside from Waters (R, pictured in 1968), the complicated deal involved guitarist-keyboard player David Gilmour (2-L), founding drummer Nick Mason (L), and the estates of the late founding keyboardist Richard Wright (2-R) and late founding frontman Roger ‘Syd’ Barrett
Last month, Gilmour (pictured last Friday) confirmed to the Washington Post that the sale was in the works
The 78-year-old father-of-eight lamented: ‘My reason for wanting to do it is I don’t want to burden my kids with that whole legacy. And I also have had enough of the burdens of looking after that f***ing legacy for the last nearly 40 years with the s*** and the arguments that go on. And I just want to be shorn of it’ (pictured September 11)
When asked if he worried about future AI or hologram versions of Pink Floyd, David scoffed: ‘No. I’ll be dead. Who gives a s*** what anyone does?’