‘Grab That Cash’: Pink Floyd Pause Infighting to Sell Recorded Music Catalog for $400 Million
Sony Music has also reportedly acquired the rights to the band’s name and likeness
Pink Floyd: Roger Waters, Nick Mason, David Gilmour, Richard Wright in 1971. Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images
After years of in-fighting and near-agreements, Pink Floyd have finally reached a deal to sell the rights to their recorded music catalog to Sony Music, according to the Financial Times.
The deal is reported to be worth around $400 million and also includes the rights to the band’s name and likenesses. That means, along with gaining full control over Pink Floyd’s music, Sony will have the crucial rights for most things Pink Floyd-related, from merch to movies.
A rep for Sony Music declined to comment. A source confirmed the veracity of the details to Rolling Stone.
In an interview with Rolling Stone in August, Gilmour confirmed that the band was “in discussion” about a potential catalog sale, with the guitarist adding he was tired of the continued in-fighting and “veto system” that has resulted in animosity and delayed reissues over petty issues like liner notes.
“To be rid of the decision-making and the arguments that are involved with keeping it going is my dream,” Gilmour said of a catalog sale. “If things were different… and I am not interested in that from a financial standpoint. I’m only interested in it from getting out of the mud bath that it has been for quite a while.”
With the Sony deal in place, the label — and not the band — will now bear the responsibility for the next Pink Floyd release, a 50th-anniversary edition of Wish You Were Here that is expected to arrive in 2025.
The Sony deal comes 18 months after Pink Floyd made traction on a $500 million agreement to sell their music, only for more bickering between band mates to make the deal “basically dead,” as sources told Variety in March 2023.
“You could say the deal is no longer ‘active,’” a source said at the time. “But at the same time, it’s still on the table. It’s a strange situation!” Issues around that deal include minutiae like interest rates, tax concerns, the strength of the British pound, and a potential devaluation of the music due to Roger Waters’ frequently provocative political statements.
The Sony deal only includes Pink Floyd’s recorded music catalog, which allows for the band to keep its largely Waters-penned publishing catalog and retain ownership of now-apropos lyrics like “Money/It’s a crime/Share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie” and “We call it riding the gravy train.”
From Rolling Stone US.
