celeb news Katy Perry sells her music catalog for $225M

[FakeInsider]

Imagine coming for Katy while you stan Kesha  

[Katy V.!]

It has always blown my mind how she has been able to oversell herself during her whole career

 

This is such an impressive deal  I thought she lowkey scammed American Idol but she's always been such a good negotiator, there's a reason she gets called nun-murderer

[Witnessed ET]

2 minutes ago, Katy V.! said:

It has always blown my mind how she has been able to oversell herself during her whole career

 

This is such an impressive deal  I thought she lowkey scammed American Idol but she's always been such a good negotiator, there's a reason she gets called nun-murderer

She scammed American idol for sure because the $25M per season is a ridiculous amount of money for anyone, but I don’t think $225M for her catalogue is overselling at all. People are undermining how massive her past singles have been both commercially and gp-awareness-wise just because she hasn’t seen that kinda success as of recent. 

[AvadaKedavra]

25 minutes ago, Witnessed ET said:

Her recurrents are pretty good for someone who hasn’t had a big smash since 2014, what are you even talking about? And she’s had quite good numbers for some recent songs as well. 

 

Yeah she just doesn’t seem to be invested in her music career anymore and it’s kinda understandable with her current priorities in her personal life, but let’s hope this doesn’t mean she won’t stop  making albums in the future. i agree that her  songs/classics might live on this way more than with what Capitol would have done, so that’s a positive. 

To be fair all the old pop girls dont care about it anymore. Theyre invested in different things. Taylor is one of the only exceptions giving her 100%
We are in a drought and the insane thing is how the new acts are rare. We should have tons of new pop girls cause the old ones dont care anymore 

 

[Katy V.!]

3 minutes ago, Witnessed ET said:

She scammed American idol for sure because the $25M per season is a ridiculous amount of money for anyone, but I don’t think $225M for her catalogue is overselling at all. People are undermining how massive her past singles have been both commercially and gp-awareness-wise just because she hasn’t seen that kinda success as of recent. 

Yeah but she didn't sell her catalog, she sold her share of her catalog... which is a huge difference depending of how big was her share (someone mentioned 25% which would be nuts). 

 

Given the state of her career, her short catalog and the uncertainty of even making that money back, I'd say it's a fantastic deal. 

[Witnessed ET]

6 minutes ago, Katy V.! said:

Yeah but she didn't sell her catalog, she sold her share of her catalog... which is a huge difference depending of how big was her share (someone mentioned 25% which would be nuts). 

 

Given the state of her career, her short catalog and the uncertainty of even making that money back, I'd say it's a fantastic deal. 

Well yeah in terms of the share, I would say it’s a good deal. I’m sure with licensing and all, they’d be able to make back the money.

but Katy got the coins so she won 

[Walk_Away21]

Ok can the Katycats explain why this BOP is hated? Would fit right in as a Prism top 10 I fear. And I can't even stand Charlie Puta. @KatyPrismSpirit @Witnessed ET @SalvoPK  explain!

 

 

[Taylor fanboy]

The first page.

[Witnessed ET]

39 minutes ago, Walk_Away21 said:

Ok can the Katycats explain why this BOP is hated? Would fit right in as a Prism top 10 I fear. And I can't even stand Charlie Puta. @KatyPrismSpirit @Witnessed ET @SalvoPK  explain!

 

 

It’s not bad per se, but

 

1. it came right after pop perfection like Never Really Over, it was bland in front of NRO

2. NRO was rising on radio but was pulled from radio to push Small Flop instead, killing NRO’s momentum. It was on its way to top 10 and maybe even top 5 if it wasn’t for Small Flop.

3. NRO received good Spotify playlisting, but once Small Flop released, it ate up NRO’s playlisting and they made way for ST instead 

 

so yeah, the fans have a strained history with this damn song 

[Pop Art]

Quote

According to sources, Litmus paid $225 million for Perry’s stake in the master recording royalties and music publishing rights to her five albums released between 2008 and 2020  – One of the Boys, Teenage Dream, PRISM, Witness and Smile. Litmus declined to comment on the deal terms.

If I'm understanding this correctly, it implies she doesn't own her masters (which is expected since so few do) but is selling any royalties she would get from them along with the rights to her music publishing. Given that...doesn't that mean she will no longer make any money from sales and streams of anything from these 5 albums?

 

From a financial perspective, it does make sense though. That massive $225M payout now can be invested and yield far more in the same time it would take to get the original $225M from just the royalties alone in the long run. It sucks as a music fan to see the art so corporatized, but it does make sense financially.

[Onyxmage]

And here I am begging my mom to get me a big mac bundle for dinner tonight. Get money Queen!!

[TheFireLexus]

21 minutes ago, Pop Art said:

Given that...doesn't that mean she will no longer make any money from sales and streams of anything from these 5 albums?

Yes. Exactly.

 

21 minutes ago, Pop Art said:

That massive $225M payout now can be invested and yield far more in the same time it would take to get the original $225M from just the royalties alone in the long run.

Also yes. It's also worth remembering that she's already made (probably) hundreds of millions from the catalog over the years from actual album and single sales.

[spree]

next ATRL will not count her great daily streaming numbers cuz the revenue is not going to her. 

 

$225M is a huge number. She's set for life.  I don't think Spotify would pay that much for streams of her Top 10 songs over the course of the next 30 years, so I don't see how this is bad news.  We all die anyways so what's the big deal?

[spree]

8 hours ago, AvadaKedavra said:

3 Questions?
I'm confused. When an artist sells their catalog, do the owners of that catalog also gain ownership of the vault tracks - the unreleased records? 
Is this situation good or bad for Katheryn? Does it mean she will receive no future money from her past hits, and her grandchildren won't receive anything either?

With ownership of the entire catalog, the owners can do whatever they want with those songs??

 

her grandchildren are guaranteed millionaires already and they aren't even born yet. 

[Communion]

12 hours ago, postergirl said:

How do these deals even work? Does Katy bank all of that money or is it split between writers and producers etc? Because I want Bonnie McKee to make fat stacks from this so she can keep giving us MPG-level music videos for her upcoming album.

From what I read, Bonnie already sold most of her publishing shares at least a year or two ago too.

For example, neither her or Bonnie will get any money that "Teenage Dream" generates going forward.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Communion

[Xtina23]

Wow.

[1989]

I mean get money, and it’s a good deal, but I’m surprised she wouldn’t also negotiate to keep a portion of the royalties. ATRL loves to make fun of Katy now, but Teenage Dream alone will generate income forever. 

[chiliam]

she was a MPG after all, she has nothing to prove.

But i do hope that`s she still has a passion to music, unlike Rih which doesnt contribute much to make her music, Katy is also a songwriter, so really really hope she still got the fire to serve more bops. Like Kylie or even Madonna, like they dont smash but still release quite frequently in their 40s.

[highwind44029]

It's so funny to see how much the OKH are fuming about this flop winning

 

Get that bag, queen!

Edited September 19, 2023 by highwind44029

[Communion]

9 hours ago, AvadaKedavra said:

3 Questions?
I'm confused. When an artist sells their catalog, do the owners of that catalog also gain ownership of the vault tracks - the unreleased records? 
Is this situation good or bad for Katheryn? Does it mean she will receive no future money from her past hits, and her grandchildren won't receive anything either?

With ownership of the entire catalog, the owners can do whatever they want with those songs??

Masters in the context of royalties mean the recording as commercially released - and unreleased demos are by default not commercially released. However, labels will enact clauses in an artist's contract that music they paid for the creation of is also theirs, even if not commercially released. If the label pays for the studio time, etc.

 

Taylor had to re-produce the demos on her re-releases because Big Machine still likely paid for the original recordings to be made and thus she cannot use the recording as-made. From what we've seen from pop acts who have ran into this issue, there's likely some time condition deployed between when rights to re-record songs seem to return back to the people who wrote said song, though it seems to vary. Maybe it's based on the hold fee?

 

And sometimes those rights don't return. Bonnie McKee said she ran into this issue and could not use a specific track on her upcoming album because Epic had actually fully paid Greg Kurstin his producer's fee for it (not just a hold fee) and thus owned the master recording outright once Greg was paid (maybe it was earmarked as a future single?). 

 

Labels may struggle to claim work you've created entirely independent of them. Fans of niche Canadian teen dramas may remember Alexz Johnson who basically made an album on her own in 2005, brought that record to and signed with Capitol Records in 2006, got dropped but kept her masters in 2007, re-produced that album with Epic Records in 2008, got dropped and the album shelved in 2009, etc. She couldn't put out the versions Epic paid for, but she retained the rights to the demos she brought to them.

 

But as someone mentioned, she sold her % of master-generated royalties, not her masters (Capitol always owned those). It'd be interesting if someone more knowledgeable in music law knew what would happen, for example, if Capitol put out a 20th Anniversary version of Teenage Dream with unreleased material. Would Litmus would get the revenue share of just the original 15-track album and Katy the royalties from newly released demos?

[Iaintsorry]

I really don’t get why an artist would sell their entire music catalog unless they were thinking of retiring… so I guess we know her next steps…

[Chris]

The replies on the first page.

 

 

[Breathe On Moi]

didn’t Bieber get 200 now that I think of it? this is actually really, really good.

[favorite crime]

8 hours ago, Witnessed ET said:

She scammed American idol for sure because the $25M per season is a ridiculous amount of money for anyone, but I don’t think $225M for her catalogue is overselling at all. People are undermining how massive her past singles have been both commercially and gp-awareness-wise just because she hasn’t seen that kinda success as of recent. 

Well it's hard to say if they overpaid or not just because we don't have all the details. Justin sold his catalogue, which includes more albums and has much better recurrents than Katy's, for $200mil but of course we don't know how high his or Katy's publishing % are to really compare 

[Kiss It Better]

does this mean we're getting Milk Milk Lemonade (Round The Back's Where Chocolate's Made) (Katy's Version) (From the Vault)