How Much Did Universal Music Pay Bob Dylan For Song Rights?

Dec 16, 2020, 16:39 IST

Universal Music Publishing Group on Monday announced that it had signed one of its biggest deals to purchase music icon Bob Dylan’s entire songwriting catalog. This includes his hits like Blowin’ in the Wind, The Times They Are A- Changin and Like a Rolling Stone. This is considered to be one of the biggest acquisitions ever of the music publishing rights of a single songwriter.

The deal covers Dylan’s entire career, from his earliest tunes to his latest album -Rough and Rowdy Ways. However, the price was not disclosed, but is estimated at more than $300 million as reported first in the New York Times.

“It’s no secret that the art of songwriting is the fundamental key to all great music, nor is it a secret that Bob is one of the very greatest practitioners of that art,” Lucian Grainge, the chief executive of the Universal Music Group, said in a statement.

It's with great honor we welcome @BobDylan to the UMPG family.

We look forward to working with Bob & the team in ensuring his artistry continues to reach and inspire generations of fans, recording artists & songwriters around the world.

↳ https://t.co/87BSCavXv6 pic.twitter.com/S587S2ycl9

— Universal Music Publishing Group (@UMPG) December 7, 2020

Bob Dylan's (79) career in rock 'n' roll spanned more than 60 years with 600 songs under his belt. Since he first entered the music scene via New York City’s Greenwich Village folk music scene in the early 1960s, Bob Dylan has sold more than 125 million records around the world and amassed a singular body of work that includes some of the greatest and most popular songs the world has ever known. He topped the Rolling Stone list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015 and the song "Like A Rolling Stone" was named by the magazine as the best ever written.

Dylan’s singular body of work earned him a Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition" and is the only songwriter to receive the award.