ContractsProf Blog

Editor: Jeremy Telman
Oklahoma City University
School of Law

Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Justin Bieber Is Selling His Soul. No, That's Not News. He's Selling His Music

As , in conversation with Eamonn Forde, reports in The Guardian, Justin Bieber (below -- honest, I'm not trying to be mean (yet) by posting his mugshot; it's the only public domain image I could find!) has entered into a $200 million deal giving Hipgnosis Songs Capital the rights to all of his music recorded before 2021.  Baby, baby, baby, oh, that's a lot of money!  But it covers 290 titles, even though I can only think of one.

BiebermugshotThe transaction is an indicator of a trend.  Music is back, according to The Guardian, with album sales climbing in the U.S. over the past two years.  I'm not sure what these guys mean by "album," but whatever. 

And it's not just about you-know-who who is committed to owning all of her own music and insists on bringing out a new (old) album every year in order to do so to the delight of her fans who apparently are unaware that the world is teeming with talented artists of whom they've never heard (like Sarah Dooley) because all they listen to is this poor girl who is the most downloaded artist in history but for some reason is still singing about somebody who broke up with her ten years ago when she is not setting records for use of her private jet in a year when she's not even touring. 

Haters gonna hate. 

Actually, I wouldn't hate this artist if she were just stupendously successful.  I hate that she takes up all the oxygen in the room so that no other artists can breathe (and my students disappear for 48 hours after she drops a new album so that they can commit every syllable to memory and then shoot each other knowing looks when I accidentally use some utterly humdrum phrase that also happens to have found its way into her lyrics, which are 98% utterly humdrum phrases. 

But I digress.

Anyhew, Hipgnosis is a big player in the market, and that company and its rivals are betting on the long-term value of the songs that they are buying up.  Hipgnosis principal proclaims himself to be a "disruptor" who wants to destroy the traditional model of music publishing.   It's not clear to me that there's anything left to destroy, but his company has literally spent billions of dollars on demolition, so I suppose there's still work to be done.  

Among the things that makes me wonder whether the parties know what they are doing is the round numbers involved in these transactions.  According to the Guardian, "Stevie Nicks sold her catalogue for $100m. Bob Dylan shed his for a cool $300m-400m. Bruce Springsteen tops the lot at $550m."  Okay, so a Bieber is twice a Nicks and half a Dylan?  But also, what are these numbers based on.  If there were a formula, it would produce a number with more significant digits.  I think these deals are very rough guesstimates to true value, which is why I have decided not to buy the rights to all of Britney Spears' music just yet.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractsprof_blog/2023/02/justin-bieber-is-selling-his-soul-no-thats-not-news-hes-selling-his-music.html

Celebrity Contracts, Commentary, Music | Permalink

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