Leonard Cohen is the latest artist whose song rights have been bought, after his estate reached a deal with the Hipgnosis Songs Fund for an undisclosed sum.According to Rolling Stone, the deal includes all 278 songs that Cohen wrote, including his most popular songs ‘Hallelujah’, ‘Suzanne’, ‘So Long, Marianne’, ‘First We Take Manhattan’ and more.The investment company obtained the “songwriter’s share” of 127 songs from Cohen’s Stranger Music catalogue, which covers the period of the inception of late musician’s career through to the year 2000; derivative works pushes the total to 211 songs.Hipgnosis also acquired the ownership of 100 per cent of the copyrights, “publisher’s share” and “songwriter’s share” of royalties of the latter part of his catalogue, spanning from 2001 to his death in 2016.“To now be the custodians and managers of Leonard Cohen’s incomparable songs is a wonderful yet very serious responsibility that we approach with excitement and fully understand the importance of,” Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis said in a statement.“Leonard wrote words and songs that have changed our lives, none more so obvious than ‘Hallelujah’ but there are so many more that we look forward to reminding the world of on a daily basis.

He is revered all over the globe because of the magnitude of his work.”Hipgnosis, which has spent more than $2billion (£1.4billion) buying the rights to hits from iconic artists such as Neil Young, Blondie, Shakira, Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie, producer Bob Rock and many more, brokered the deal in partnership with Cohen’s family and his manager Robert Kory.“Merck Mercuriadis is unique in the music publishing world with his background as an artist manager,” Kory said in.

Leonard Cohen estate sells songwriting catalogue to Hipgnosis

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