Queen Catalog Could Sell for Over $1 Billion to Universal Music Group (Report)
thewrap.comCNN reported, with Universal Music Group likely to snatch up anthems like “We Are the Champions,” “We Will Rock You” and “Another One Bites the Dust” from Disney Music Group in a deal that “could surpass $1 billion.”A spokesperson for the Disney Music Group told CNN the company has no plans to sell the catalog.
Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning.Disney reportedly paid $10 million for the distribution rights to the band’s catalog in 1991.Should “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” and the rest of the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame band’s songs pull in the reported $1 billion, it would be the largest sale of a music catalog so far, knocking Bruce Springsteen from the top of the heap.
The Boss sold his music catalog to Sony Music Entertainment in December 2021 for a reported $500 million.That sum topped blockbuster deals inked by Bob Dylan, who sold the rights to 600 of his Nobel Prize-winning works to Universal Music Group a year earlier for a reported $300 million in December 2020.
Neil Young followed sued the following month, selling a 50% stake in his catalog to Hipgnosis Song Fund for an undisclosed sum that some reports put at $150 million.
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